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 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 THE RIVIERA: Ancient and 
 
 Modern. By Charles Lentheric. 
 Translated by Charles West, M.D. 
 With Maps and Plans. 
 
 ROME AND POMPEII: 
 Archaeological Rambles. By 
 
 Gaston Boissier, of the French Academy. 
 Translated by D. Havelock Fisher. 
 With Maps and Plans.
 
 THE 
 
 COUNTRY OF HORACE 
 AND VIRGIL 
 
 BY 
 
 GASTON BOISSIER 
 
 OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 D. HAVELOCK FISHER 
 
 WITH MAPS AND PLANS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 1896
 
 T ^ ^ 
 
 SI 
 
 ^
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Horace's Country House . . . .1-58 
 
 I. How Horace came to know Maecenas — Char- 
 acter of Maecenas — Life in his house — The palace 
 
 of the Esquiline 5-15 
 
 II. Was Horace really a lover of Nature ? — The 
 second E2')ode — How residence in Rome became 
 unbearable to him — The consequences for him of 
 his intimacy with Maecenas — Beggars and Bores — 
 The joy he must have felt when Mcecenas gave 
 
 him the estate in the Sabine Hills . . . 15-24 
 
 III. Journey to the house in the Sabina — The 
 Temple of Vacuna — Roccagiovine — Fontc deW 
 Oratmi — Probable position of the house — Extent 
 
 of Horace's domain — Pleasantness of the site . 24-37 
 
 IV. Renown of Horace's country house among 
 the poets of Rome— Position of poets in Rome — 
 Relations of Horace and Maecenas to each 
 other — How the poet made the great lord respect 
 
 him . 37-48 
 
 6
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PACES 
 
 V. How Horace lived at his country house — 
 His journeys — He begins to regret Rome no 
 more — His last years 48-58 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 The Etruscan Tombs at Coiineto . . . 59-115 
 
 I. How Tarquinii disappeared — Corneto — 
 Relics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 
 
 at Corneto — The Etruscan tombs — General aspect 62-72 
 
 II. Importance of sepulture among the Etrus- 
 cans — The paintings in the tombs — Few scenes of 
 sadness found among them — How it is that they 
 80 often represent banquets and games — The 
 exactness of these paintings — The costume of the 
 personages is that of the ancient Romans — The 
 small number representing mytliological subjects, 
 and the conclusions to be drawn from this — The 
 Etruscans accept the fables of Greece — Tomba 
 del' Oreo — "What happens to these fables among 
 
 the Etruscans — Charun 73-91 
 
 III. The paintings in the tombs the only means 
 we have of becoming acquainted with Etruscan 
 civilization— Ancient tombs — They do not difl'er 
 from those of other Italian races — The period in 
 wliich we find amber, and why we cease to find it 
 a little later — Vasi di hucchero Nero — Influence of 
 the Carthaginians — At what moment it must have
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PAGES 
 
 begun — Have we a riglit to iufer from the presence 
 of Phoenician objects in the tombs of Etruria the 
 Eastern origin of the Eti'uscans ?— The influence 
 of Greece — At what epoch was it exercised I — Can 
 it be said that Etruscan art never possessed origin- 
 ality ? — Paintings at Coere — Decadence and end 
 of Etruscan art ....... 91-115 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Country of the ^^neid .... 117-171 
 
 I. The Legend of ^neas ..... 119-171 
 
 I. The legends — Why they deserve to be 
 studied — The legend of ^neas — How it arose — 
 jEneas in the Iliad — Homer supposes the race of 
 the iEneides to have been established on Mount 
 Ida — The journeys of .lEneas — How it came to be 
 supposed that he left Asia — The worship of Aphro- 
 dite, the mother of iEneas — Genesis of the legend 119-132 
 
 II. How the legend of ^neas penetrated into 
 Italy — Opinion of Niebuhr — It does not replace 
 the Italian legends, but rather overlaps them — 
 It is connected with the origin of Lavinium — 
 Hypothesis of Schwegler — The process of assimila- 
 tion by which ^neas came to assume an Italian 
 physiognomy — How the Greeks came to communi- 
 cate the legend to the Italians — In what manner 
 it was received — The Romans not hostile to foreign 
 ideas and usages — The influence of Greece on 
 Rome in early times 133-145
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 III. At what moment did the legend first be- 
 come known to the Romans 1 — It is first mentioned 
 at the time of the war with Pyrrhus — The import- 
 ance it takes after the Punic Wars — The legend 
 among the poets, Nfevius — The legend among the 
 historians and scholiasts, Cato, Varro — The legend 
 among the artists — Why was it more spread among 
 the Romans than amon's the Greeks ? . . 146-160 
 
 IV. What reason had Virgil to choose the legend 
 of -tEneas for the subject of his poem ? — The his- 
 torical epic and the mythological epic — The JEneid 
 is both a mythological and an historical epic — 
 Why did Virgil prefer ^neas to Romulus ? — 
 In what sense may the JE)ieid be said to have 
 been popular ? 160-171 
 
 11. ^NEAS IN Sicily ...... 171-236 
 
 I. How Virgil came to know Sicily — Pollion 
 counsels him to imitate Theocritus — By what 
 qualities Theocritus must have pleased Virgil — 
 The Moretum — Why Virgil did not continue to 
 
 write realistic poems — Sicily in the jBttcofo . 172-180 
 
 II. Sicily in Virgil's time — Character of the 
 Greeks of Sicily — Why they were attached to 
 Roman rule— Sicily ruined and pillaged by 
 Roman governors — What travellers went to seek 
 in Sicily — Marvels of nature — Marvels of art — 
 The monuments of that time— Public temples —
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Private galleries — Shrine of Heiiis — Taste of the 
 Romans of that time for works of art — The por- 
 trait of Verres drawn by Cicero — Attractions of 
 Sicily for Virgil 181-198 
 
 III. The Third Book of the jEneicl — ^neas in 
 Epirus— He touches at Italy — Tarentum — He 
 passes into Sicily — ^Etna — The isle of Ortigia — 
 The fountain of Arethusa — Agrigentum — What 
 Virgil's feelings must have been on going over 
 the ruins of Greek cities in Sicily — Drepanum — 
 Death of Anchises 198-216 
 
 IV. Return of J^neas to Sicily — Fifth Book of 
 the JEneid — Mount Eryx — Temple of Venus 
 Erycina — Funeral games in honour of Anchises — 
 Course of the ships — Burning of the fleet— 
 Segesta — Departure of Jllneas for Italy . . 216-236 
 
 III. OsTiA AND Lavinium 236-289 
 
 I. The two parts of the yEneid — Character of 
 the last six Books — Virgil is here in the heart of 
 his subject — Perfection of style — The poet's aim 
 comes out better — Virgil's patriotism — How he 
 
 has grouped all Italy around his work . . 236-245 
 
 II. .iEneas lands on the shore of Ostia — Virgil's 
 description of it — Its aspect in our days — How 
 -^neas knows that he has reached the end of his 
 voyage — Miracle of the eaten tables — The white 
 sow and her thirty little ones — Original meaning 
 
 of this legend, and the changes it underwent . 245-259
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAO ES 
 
 III. Laviiiium — Its decadence under the 
 Empire — Worship of the Penates — Vestiges of 
 the ancient city — Pratica — Outlook from the 
 Borghese Tower — Tlie phiin of the Latium — Latin 
 and Sabine elements in the Roman citv . . 259-275 
 
 IV. iEneas goes to see Evander at Pallanteum — 
 The Trojan camp at Ostia — It is besieged and 
 almost taken in the absence of the chief — Burning 
 of the ships — Episode of Nisus and Euryalus . 276-289 
 
 IV. Laurentum 290-346 
 
 I. Tenth Book of the Mneid — Assembly of the 
 gods — Return of ^neas — War in Virgil's poem — 
 His portrayal of the different Italic races — Why 
 
 he did not paint them more distinctly . . 290-301 
 
 II. Laurentum — How the old town disappeared 
 —Where could it have been situated? — Canal of the 
 Stagno di Levante — The Selva Laurentina — The 
 boars of Laurentum — Aspect of the shore — 
 Pliny's villa 301-310 
 
 III. Tor Paterno — Character of the ruins found 
 there — The villa of Commodus — March of JEneas 
 on Laurentum — Ambush of Turnus — Probable 
 situation of Laurentum 310-322
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGES 
 
 IV. The palace of Latinus — How Virgil com- 
 poses his descriptions — Why he does not exactly 
 reproduce those of Homer — Mixture of different 
 epochs — Unity of the whole .... 323-337 
 
 V. Combat of ^Eneas and Turnus — Artifices 
 used by Virgil to defer it — The battle-field — 
 Difference between the fight of ^Eneas with 
 Turnus and that of Achilles and Hector . 337-346
 
 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE 
 AND VIRGIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 hokace's country house. 
 
 One cannot read Horace without longing to be 
 acquainted with that country house in which he was 
 so happy. Can we know exactly where it was ? Is 
 it possible to find again, not the very stones of his 
 villa, which time has doubtless scattered, but the 
 charming spot he has so oft described — those lofty 
 mountains which " sheltered his goats from the summer 
 fires ; " that spring by which he was wont to stretch him- 
 self in the day's hot hours ; those woods, those rivulets, 
 those valleys — in fine, that landscape which he had before 
 his eyes during the longer and better portion of his 
 life ? People have been asking themselves this question 
 ever since the Eenaissance, and its solution might have 
 been early foreseen. Towards the end of the sixteenth 
 century some learned men, who had started in search 
 of Horace's house, surmised the place where it should be 
 looked for, but their indications being vague, and not 
 always based on solid proofs, they failed to produce a 
 
 A
 
 2 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 general conviction. Besides, there was no lack of per- 
 sons who did not wisli to be convinced. In every 
 corner of the Sabine Hills some village sage vocifer- 
 ously claimed for his district the honour of having 
 sheltered Horace, and would not liear of its being 
 bereft of it. And this is how liis house came to be 
 located at Tibur, at Cures, at Eeate — everywhere, in 
 short, but where it ought to be. 
 
 The problem was definitely solved in the second 
 half of the last century by a Frenchman, Abbe 
 Capraartin de Chaupy. He was one of those who go 
 to Eome to spend a few months, and remain there all 
 their lives. When he had once resolved to find the site 
 of Horace's house, he did not spare himself trouble.^ He 
 went over nearly the wliole of Italy, studying monuments, 
 reading inscriptions, questioning the people of the 
 country, and personally investigating the sites which best 
 answered to the descriptions of the poet. He travelled by 
 short stages on a horse, which, if we are to believe him, 
 by dint of being taken to so many antiquities had almost 
 become an antiquarian itself. This animal, he tells us, 
 went to ruins of his own accord, and his fatigue seemed 
 to vanish directly he found himself on the pavement of 
 some ancient way. Capmartin de Chaupy wrote three 
 large volumes of nearly five hundred pages each ^ about 
 
 ^ It must be mentioned that Capmartin de Chaupy was passionately 
 fond of Horace, and found reasons for everything in his favourite 
 author. He lived long enough to witness the French Revolution, and 
 it is said that it did not take him by surprise. Horace had taught 
 him to foresee it, and he willingly pointed out the places in his works 
 where it was predicted in express terms. 
 
 2 Dtcouvertc de la maiscm de, campagne d^ Horace, par 1' Abb6 Capmartin 
 de Chaupy, Rome, 1767-1769.
 
 Horace's countky house. 3 
 
 his journeys, and the results to which his indefatigable 
 labours had led hiin. His subject — the site of Horace's 
 house — could not be expected to fill so many pages, 
 and the author often turns aside to speak on other 
 matters. He writes how he travelled, stopping at 
 each step, and often leaving the highroad in order to 
 plunge into byways. He spares us nothing, but 
 elucidates, in passing, obscure points of geography and 
 history, notices inscriptions, finds lost towns again, and 
 fixes the direction of ancient roads, This manner of 
 proceeding, then much in vogue among the learned, 
 nearly deprived Chaupy of the honour of his dis- 
 covery. De Sanctis, a Eoman savant, who had heard 
 his labours spoken of, started on the same track, and 
 easily out-stripping him, published a little dissertation 
 on the same subject which was favourably received.^ 
 This was a great grief to the poor Abbe, who com- 
 plained bitterly. Happily, his three volumes, which 
 appeared almost immediately afterwards, brought over 
 public opinion to his side, and few now deny him the 
 glory of having found Horace's country house, of which 
 he was so proud. 
 
 Eoughly speaking, this is how he sets to work- 
 to prove to the most incredulous that he is not 
 mistaken. He first establishes the fact that Horace 
 had not a plurality of domains, since he himself 
 tells us that he possesses only the Sabine estate, 
 and that this estate is enough for him : satis beatus 
 unicis Sabinis? It follows therefore that all his 
 descriptions must refer to this estate and be applicable 
 
 ^ Dissertazione sopra la villa di Orazzio Flacco, dell' abbate Dominico 
 de Sanctis. * CarJtt., II. 18, 14.
 
 4 THE COUNTRY OF HORA.CE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to it. This basis fixed, Chaupy visits in turn every 
 spot on which it lias been sought to place the poet's 
 house, and has no difficulty in showing that not one of 
 them quite agrees with the pictures he has drawn of it. 
 It can only be to the east of Tivoli and near Vicovaro, 
 as this district alone corresponds exactly with the 
 lines of Horace. More striking and more conclusively 
 convincincj still is the fact that all the modern names 
 here have kept their likeness to the ancient ones. We 
 know from Horace that the most important town in 
 the vicinity of his house, whither his farmers repaired 
 on every market-day, was called Varia. The table of 
 Peutinger also speaks of Varia, placing it eight miles 
 from Tibur. Well, eight miles from Tivoli, the ancient 
 Tibur, we to-day find Vicovaro, which has kept its ancient 
 name (Vicus Varia) nearly unaltered. Again, at the 
 foot of Vicovaro flows a little brook called the Licenza : 
 it is, with very slight change, the Digentia of Horace. 
 He tells us also that this brook waters the small town 
 of Mandela. To-day Mandela has become Bardela, 
 which is almost the same, and to make assurance 
 doubly sure, an inscription found there comj^letely 
 restores to it its ancient name.^ Lastly, the high 
 Mount Lucretalis, which shaded the poet's house, is the 
 Corgnaleto, called Mons Lucretii in the charts of the 
 Middle Ages.- It cannot be chance alone that has 
 brought together in the same locality all the names of 
 places mentioned by the poet; neither is it chance 
 that lias made this canton of the Sabine Hills to 
 
 1 Orelli, Inscr. lat., 104. 
 *"Vie d'Horace," par Noel des Vergers, p. 27, in Didot's Horace,
 
 HORACE S COUNTRY HOUSE. 5 
 
 correspond so perfectly with all his descriptions. It is 
 certain, then, that his house was in this region, watered 
 by the Licenza, on the slopes of the Corgnaleto, not far 
 from Vicovaro and Bardela. It is thither we must 
 send the worshippers of Horace (if any yet remain) 
 if they would make a pious pilgrimage to his villa. 
 
 I. 
 
 HOW HORACE CAME TO KNOW MAECENAS — CHARACTER 
 OF M^CENAS — LIFE IN HIS HOUSE — THE PALACE 
 OF THE ESQUILINE. 
 
 Before taking them there, let us briefly recall how he 
 became its owner ; for this is an interesting chapter of 
 his history. 
 
 We know that after having fought at Philippi as a 
 military tribune in the Eepublican army, he returned to 
 Eome, where the gates were opened to him during an 
 amnesty. This return must have been most sad. He had 
 lost his father, whom he tenderly loved, and had been 
 deprived of his estate. The great hopes he cherished 
 when, at twenty years of age he had seen himself 
 distinguished by Brutus and put at the head of a legion, 
 were rudely dissipated. He said " they had cut his 
 wings." ^ He fell from all his ambitious aims into the 
 miseries of an embarrassed existence, and, in order to 
 live, the late military tribune had to buy himself a 
 government clerkship. Yet poverty was not without 
 its use, if, as he asserts, it gave him the courage to write 
 
 ^ Decisis humilempcnnis — Epist.jW. 2, 50.
 
 6 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 verses.^ These verses met with great success ; he had 
 adopted the right way to attract public notice : he spoke 
 ill of persons of credit. His Satires, in which he expressed 
 himself freely in an age when nobody dared to speak, 
 having made a noise, Maecenas, who was curious, 
 wanted to see him, and had him introduced by Varius 
 and by Virgil. These facts are known to all: it is need- 
 less to insist on them. 
 
 Maecenas was then one of the most important person- 
 ages of the Empire, and shared with Agrippa the favour 
 of Octavius. But their behaviour was very different. 
 While Agrippa, a soldier of fortune, born in an obscure 
 family, loved to adorn himself with the first dignities 
 of the State, Mitcenas, who belonged to the highest 
 nobility of Etruria, remained in the shade. Only twice 
 in his life was he ofHcially charged with the exercise of 
 public authority : in 717, during the embarrassments 
 caused by the war in Sicily against Sextus Pompeius ; 
 and in 723, when Octavius went to fight Antony. But 
 he bore a new title which left him outside the hierarchy 
 of ancient functionaries.^ But he would accept no more 
 honours. He obstinately refused to enter the Senate, 
 and remained to the end a simple knight, humbly tak- 
 ing a place below all those sons of great lords, who 
 were quickly raised to the highest offices through family 
 influence. It is not easy to understand this dis- 
 interestedness, as rare then as it is now. His contem- 
 
 ^ Paupertas impulit andax Ut versus facercm — Epist. II, 2, 51. 
 
 ' It is generally tliought that he was named by Octavius Prefect 
 of Rome (prce/edus urbi), but a commentator of Virgil, discovered at 
 Verona, calls him priefcct of the prrctorium, and M. Mommscn thinks 
 this was really the title he bore, and that it was created for him.
 
 HOEACE S COUNTRY HOUSE. 7 
 
 poraries, while loading him with praises, have omitted 
 to tell us the reason of it. Perhaps they themselves 
 found it difficult to fathom it. So refined a politician 
 does not readily reveal the motives for his conduct. 
 It has usually been attributed to a kind of natural 
 idleness or indolence, which made him dread the stir 
 of business, and this explanation is near enough to 
 the mark if not exaggerated. An impartial historian 
 tells us that he knew how to shake off his torpor 
 when action was necessary : Uhi res vigilantiam 
 exigeret, sane exsomnis, providens atquc agendi sciens? 
 But he kept himself in reserve for certain occasions, and 
 did not deem everything in human affairs worthy to 
 occupy him. He had indeed both talent and taste for 
 politics, and that he never entirely weaned himself from 
 them is proved by the circumstance that Horace one 
 day felt it necessary to say to him : " Cease to let thy 
 repose be troubled by the cares of public business. 
 Since thou hast the happiness to be a simple private 
 person like ourselves, do not concern thyself too much 
 with the dangers that may threaten the Empire." ^ He 
 busied himself with them, then, too zealously to please 
 his Epicurean friends. Although without a political 
 office, he had his eyes open to the manoeuvres of poli- 
 tical parties, to the preparations of Parthia, of Cantabria, 
 and of Dacia, He liked to speak his mind touching the 
 great questions on which depended the peace of the 
 world ; but his opinion once given, he withdrew, and 
 left to others the care of putting it into execu- 
 tion. He reserved himself for things that asked 
 but a single effort of thought. To prepare, to cora- 
 
 1 Velleius Paterculus, II. 87, 2. ^ Carm., III. 8.
 
 8 THE COUNTRY OF IIOUACE AND YIKGIL. 
 
 bine, to reflect, to foresee the consequence of events, 
 to surprise the intentions of men, to direct towards a 
 single end contrary wills and opposed interests ; to 
 create circumstances and turn them to account — this, 
 assuredly, is one of the highest applications of the intelli- 
 gence, one of the most pleasurable exercises of the mind. 
 The charm of this speculative statecraft is so great that, 
 in passing from counsel to action, one seems to lower 
 oneself. The execution of great projects calls for tedious 
 precautions, and bears in ^ts train a crowd of common- 
 place cares. Yet a statesman is only complete when he 
 knows both how to conceive and how to act ; when he is 
 capable of realising what he has imagined ; when he is 
 not content with taking broad views of things, but can 
 descend to details. It seems to me then that the friends 
 of Maecenas, who praised him for avoiding all these petty 
 troubles and choosing only to be the most important 
 adviser of Augustus, honoured him for being, in reality, 
 merely an imperfection. 
 
 They are mistaken, too, I think, when they represent 
 him as a sage who fears turmoil, who loves silence, and 
 who seeks to escape from applause and glory. There was, 
 perhaps, less modesty than pride in his resolve. He 
 disliked the crowd, and took a kind of insolent pleasure 
 in setting himself at variance with general opinion and 
 in not thinking as everybody else thought. Horace tells 
 us that h.e braved the prejudice of birth, wliich was so 
 strong around him, and that he never asked his friends 
 of what family they came.^ He feared death, and, what 
 is more common, he dared to own it.^ But, on the other 
 
 1 Sat., I. 6, 7. 
 
 ' The lines iu whicli iLxceuas owned that he feared death are
 
 HORACES COUNTRY HOUSE. 9 
 
 hand, he felt but little dread for that which follows death. ' 
 
 The cares of sepulture, the torment of so many, left 
 
 him quite indifferent. " I don't bother about a tomb," 
 
 said he, " if you neglect to bury anyone, nature sees 
 
 to it." 
 
 *^ Nee tumidum euro : sejJelit natnra relictos."'^ 
 
 This line is certainly the finest he has left us. It 
 is in the same spirit of haughty contrariety that he 
 affected to disdain all those honours which his friends 
 used to run after. He well knew that this contempt of 
 opinion was not a thing to mar his renown. The crowd 
 is so constituted that it does not love, but cannot help 
 admiring, those who differ from it ; hence there are 
 people who hide themselves in order to be sought, and 
 who think that one is sometimes more conspicuous in 
 retirement than in power. Alaecenas was perhaps of 
 the number, and it may be suspected that his attitude 
 was not entirely devoid of coquettish calculation. Not 
 only did he suffer little loss from the voluntary 
 obscurity to which he condemned himself — he might 
 even think that it conduced to his glory more than the 
 most brilliant dignities. When nothing remains of 
 statesmen but a great name, and one thinks they have 
 done much without knowing exactly what it is they 
 have done, one is often tempted to attribute to them 
 
 known to all, thanks to the translation which La Fontaine has made 
 of them in his Fables : — 
 
 " Mcccnasfut un galant homme: 
 II a dlt quelque part : ' Qu'on me rend imjiotent, 
 Cul-de-jatte, gouttcux, manchot, pourvu, qu'en sommc, 
 Je vive, c'est assez ; je suis plus que content.^ " 
 ' Son., EpisL, 92, .35.
 
 10 THE COUNTRY OF IIOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 that which does not belong to them, and to believe 
 them to be more important than they are. This is 
 precisely what has happened in the case of Maecenas. 
 Two centuries afterwards, Dion Cassius, an historian of 
 the Empire, attributed to him a long speech, in which 
 he is supposed to suggest to Augustus all the reforms 
 which that prince afterwards carried out. According 
 to this, the lionour of those institutions, which through 
 so many centuries have governed the world, is due, not 
 to the Emperor, but to the Eoman knight. We see 
 then, that if M^cenas remained in the shade 
 from calculation, this calculation was completely 
 successful, and that his clever conduct at the same 
 time assured his tranquillity during life, and has 
 increased his reputation after death. 
 
 Whatever might have been the reasons which led him 
 to shun public life, it is sure that, while refusing honours, 
 he did not mean to doom himself to solitude. He certainly 
 was not one of those philosophers who, like the sage of 
 Lucretius, have no other distraction tlian to look from 
 " the height of their austere retreat upon men groping 
 along the road of life." He intended to lead a joyous 
 existence, and, above all, to gather round him a society 
 of choice spirits. But he would not have found tliis so 
 easy had he busied himself more with public affairs. 
 A politician is not free to choose his friends as he 
 pleases. He cannot shut his doors to important person- 
 ages, bores though they sometimes are. The position 
 which Maecenas had made for himself allowed of his 
 receiving only clever people. At his house he gathered 
 round him poets and great men. Tlie poets came 
 from all ranks of society ; the great lords were gleaned
 
 hokace's countky house. 11 
 
 from every political party. Side by side with Aristius 
 Fuscus and the two Viscus, friends of Octavius, were 
 seen Servius Sulpicius, son of the great jurist so highly 
 praised by Cicero, and Bibulus, who was probably the 
 grandson of Cato. It may be asked whether that 
 fusion of parties, which brought about the oblivion of 
 past hatreds, that union of politicians of every shade of 
 opinion upon a new ground, which made the honour 
 and strength of the rule of Augustus, did not begin at 
 Maecenas' house ? Among the poets whom he had drawn 
 to him are found the two greatest of that age. He did 
 not wait to attach them to him until they had produced 
 their masterpieces ; but foretold their future greatness 
 by their maiden efforts. This does honour to his taste. 
 Certain details of the Bucolics of Virgil had caused him 
 to foresee the great touches of the Georgics and the 
 uEneid, and through the imperfections of Horace's 
 Epodes he forecast the Odes. And thus it was that this 
 house, so obstinately closed to so many great personages, 
 was early opened to the Mantuan peasant and to the 
 son of the Venusian slave. 
 
 These men of letters and great lords passed a very 
 pleasant time together. Msecenas' fortune allowed him 
 to gratify all his tastes, and give those who surrounded 
 him a liberal existence. The Eoman quidnuncs would 
 have dearly liked to know what went on in that distin- 
 guished but exclusive company. So should we, and we 
 often long to imitate the bore who, to Horace's great 
 annoyance, one day followed him all along the Sacred 
 Way, to make him talk a little. We should like to get 
 from him some particulars about those clever men with 
 whom he used to forecfather, and we search his works to
 
 12 THE COUNTRY OF HOKAGE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 see whether they will not tell us something about life 
 in Maecenas' house. Unfortunately for us, Horace is 
 discreet, and only lets fall from time to time a few 
 confidences, which we hasten to gather. One of his 
 shortest and weakest tSatircs, the eighth of the First Book, 
 offers us a sample of this kind, because it was com- 
 posed when Maecenas took possession of his house on 
 the Esquiline. This was an event of importance both 
 to the master and his friends. He desired to build a 
 house worthy of his new fortune without paying too 
 dearly for it. The problem was difficult, yet he solved 
 it admirably. The Esquiline was then a wild desert 
 hill where slaves were buried and capital punishment 
 carried out. No one in Rome would have consented to 
 dwell there. Maecenas who, as we have just seen, took 
 pleasure in doing nothing like anybody else, bought 
 large grounds there, getting them very cheap, planted 
 magnificent gardens, whose reputation lasted nearly as 
 long as the Empire, and had a large tower built, 
 commanding all the horizon. It was doubtless a great 
 surprise for Eonie when these sumptuous buildings 
 were seen rising in the worst-famed spot of the city; but 
 here the spirit of contradiction, already remarked in 
 Ma3cenas, served him well. The Esquiline, rid of its 
 filth, turned out to be healthier than the other quarters ; 
 and we are told that when Augustus caught a fever 
 on the Palatine he went to live for a few days in 
 Maecenas' tower, in order to treat and cure it. Tliis 
 afforded the poet an opportunity to compose his eighth 
 Satire. In it he celebrates this marvellous change, 
 which has turned the cut-throat Esquiline into one of 
 the most beautiful spots in Rome : —
 
 Horace's country house. 13 
 
 '■'Nunc licet Esquilus hahitare saluhrihus, atque 
 Aygere in ajmco spatiari." 
 
 And that the charm of these wardens and the magni- 
 ficence of these terraces may be the better appreciated 
 by contrast, he recalls the scenes that used to take 
 ■ place in the same spot, when it was the try sting-place 
 of robbers and witches, I suppose this little work 
 must have been read during the feasts given by 
 Msecenas to his friends when he inaugurated his new 
 house, and as it had at least the merit of timeliness, it 
 was probably much appreciated by them. It may there- 
 fore give us some idea of what was liked and applauded 
 in that elegant society. Perhaps those who read the 
 Satire to the end, bearing in mind the occasion for 
 which it was composed and the people who were to 
 listen to it, will feel some surprise. It ends with a 
 rather strong pleasantry, which it would be difficult for 
 me to translate. Here then is what amused the guests 
 at the table of Maecenas. Here then is what those 
 clever men liked to listen to at Maecenas' feasts.^ Do 
 not let us be too much astonished. The great classic 
 ages we admire are generally the outcome of rude 
 epochs, and often in their first years they retain some- 
 thing of their origin. Beneath all their delicacy 
 there remains a substratum of brutal vigour which easily 
 mounts to the surface again. What broad things were 
 said in the conversation of people of the seventeenth 
 
 ' Let us not forget that it is the same society who, in the journey 
 to Brindisi {Sat., I. 5) took so much pleasure in the insipid dispute 
 of two buffoons. It is very difficult to understand how, after listening 
 to these gross pleasantries, Horace can tell us, "We passed quite a 
 charming evening."
 
 14 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 century, nobody feeling alarmed, which could not be 
 heard to-day without a certain embarrassment ! How 
 many customs there were which to us seem coarse, but 
 which then appeared the most natural things in the 
 world ! It was later on that manners acquired their final 
 polish, and language became scrupulous and refined. 
 Unfortunately this progress is often paid for by decad- 
 ence, and the mind, during the process of polishing, risks 
 becoming enfeebled and savourless. Let us then not 
 complain of these few outbreaks of a nature not yet 
 entirely reduced to rule. They are witnesses at least to 
 the energy abiding at the root of characters by which 
 art and letters profit. The age of Ovid always comes 
 soon enough. 
 
 We see that at the moment in question Horace held 
 an important place in this society. That he did not 
 attain to it immediately we know from himself. He 
 tells us that when Virgil took him to Maecenas for the 
 first time, he lost countenance, and could only say a 
 few disconnected words to him.^ The reason is that he 
 was not like those fine talkers who have always some- 
 thing to say. He was only clever with people whom 
 he knew. As for Maecenas, he was one of those silent 
 ones " to whom belongs the world." He answered 
 but a few words, and it is probable that they 
 parted not very well pleased with each other, since 
 they remained nine months without wanting to meet 
 again. But this first coolness over, the poet showed 
 what he was. Once intimate, he made his protector 
 admire all the resources of his mind, made him love all 
 
 » Sat., I. 6, 56.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 15 
 
 the delicacy of his character. So Maecenas loaded him 
 with kindness and benefits. In 707, a year after he 
 became acquainted with him, he took him on that journey 
 to Brindisi, whither he was going to conclude peace 
 between Antony and Octavius. A few years later, 
 probably about 720, he gave him the estate in the 
 Sabine Hills. 
 
 II. 
 
 WAS HORACE REALLY A LOVER OF NATURE — THE SECOND 
 EPODE — HOW RESIDENCE IN ROME BECAME UNBEAR- 
 ABLE TO HIM — THE CONSEQUENCES FOR HIM OF HIS 
 INTIMACY WITH M^CENAS — BEGGARS AND BORES — 
 THE JOY HE MUST HAVE FELT WHEN M^CENAS GAVE 
 HIM THE ESTATE IN THE SABINE HILLS. 
 
 The circumstances which led Maecenas to make his 
 friend this handsome present are not well known to 
 us ; but a clever man like him doubtless possessed 
 that quality which Seneca required before all in an 
 intelligent benefactor — he knew how to give season- 
 ably. He thought, then, that this estate would please 
 Horace very much, and he certainly was not mistaken. 
 Does this mean that Horace was altogether like his 
 friend Virgil, and that he was only happy when among 
 the fields ? I do not believe it. Without doubt Horace 
 also liked to be in the country ; he liked the fields 
 and knew how to portray them. Nature, discreetly 
 drawn, holds a great place in his poetry. He uses it, 
 like Lucretius, to give more force and clearness to the 
 exposition of his philosophical ideas. The recurrence 
 of the seasons shows him that one must neither cherish
 
 16 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND YIRGIL. 
 
 hopes too vast, nor too enduring sorrows.^ The great 
 trees bowed by the winds of winter, the lightning- 
 smitten mountains, teach him that the highest fortunes 
 are not safe from unforeseen accidents.^ The return of 
 spring, "trembling in the zephyr-shaken leaves,"^ 
 serves him to restore courage to the desperate by 
 showing them that evil days do not last. When he 
 desires to counsel some sad spirit to forget the miseries 
 of life, in order to teach his little moral he leads him 
 to the fields, near the source of a sacred fount, at the 
 spot " where the pine and the poplar mingle together 
 their hospitable shade." * These pictures are charming 
 and the memory of all men of letters has preserved 
 them, yet they have not the depth of those offered to us 
 by Virgil and Lucretius. Horace will never pass for 
 one of those great lovers of Nature whose happiness 
 is to lose themselves in her. He was too witty, too 
 indifferent, too rational for that. I add that up to a 
 certain point his philosophy turned him from it. He 
 several times rebelled against the madness of those mor- 
 bid minds who are forever running about the world 
 in search of internal peace. Peace is neither in the 
 repose of the fields nor in the bustle of travelling. It 
 may be found everywhere when the mind is calm and 
 the heart healthy. The legitimate conclusion of this 
 muial is that we carry our happiness within us, and 
 that when one lives in town it is not necessary to 
 leave it in order to be happy. 
 
 It seemed to him then that those people who pre- 
 
 1 Carm., II. 9, 1. - Ibid., II. 10, 9. 
 
 " Ibid., I. 23, 5. * Ibid., II. 3, 6.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 1^ 
 
 tended to be passionately fond of the country, and 
 who affected to say that there alone one can live, went 
 much too far, and on one occasion he very slyly laughs 
 at them. One of his most charming Epodes, the work 
 of his youth, contains the liveliest and perhaps the 
 most complete eulogy of rustic life that was ever 
 penned. " Happy," he tells us, " he who, far from affairs, 
 like the men of old, ploughs with his own oxen the field 
 his fathers tilled : " and once launched, he never stops. 
 All the pleasures of the country are reviewed one after 
 another. Nothing is wanting ; neither the chase, nor 
 fishing, nor seed-time, nor harvest, nor the pleasure of 
 seeing one's flocks graze, nor of slumbering on the grass, 
 " while the water murmurs in the brook and the birds 
 moan in the trees." One would think he meant to 
 reconstruct in his own manner and with the same 
 sincerity the beautiful passage of Virgil : 
 
 " fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint. 
 Agricolas ! " 
 
 But let us wait till the end : the last lines have a 
 surprise in store for us ; they teach us, to our amaze- 
 ment, that it is not Horace we have been listening 
 to. "Thus spoke the usurer Alfius," he tells us; 
 "immediately resolved to become a countryman, he 
 gets in all his money at the Ides. Then he changes 
 his mind, and seeks a new investment at the Kalends."^ 
 The poet, then, has been laughing at us, and what adds 
 cruelty to his pleasantry, the reader only perceives it 
 at the end, and remains a dupe down to the last line. 
 Of all the reasons that have been given in explanation 
 
 1 Epode 2. 
 B
 
 18 THE COtNTIlY OF HORACE ANt) VIRGIL. 
 
 of this Epodc, only one seems to me natural and 
 probable. He was irritated at seeing so many people 
 frigidly admiring the country. He wanted to laugh at 
 the expense of those who, having no personal opinion, 
 thought themselves obliged to assume every fashionable 
 taste and exaggerate it.^ And we too have to suffer 
 these empty enconiums on the beauties of Nature from 
 those who go to visit the glaciers and the mountains 
 solely because it is " the thing " to have seen them, and 
 we can understand the ill-temper these conventional 
 enthusiasms must have aroused in an honest and 
 accurate mind that cared only for the truth. 
 
 But if Horace did not possess all the ardour of the 
 Banker Alfius for the country, if he lived willingly 
 in Eome, it was because he did not remain there 
 always. Then, as now, people took good care not to 
 stay there during those burning months " which made 
 so much work for the undertaker of funeral pomps and 
 liis black lictors." "^ From the moment Aitstcr, " heavy 
 as lead," 2 began to blow, all who could do so went 
 away. So did Horace. While the rich dragged a 
 numerous attendance in their train, were preceded by 
 Xumidian courtiers, and accompanied by gladiators to 
 defend and philosophers to amuse them, he, being 
 poor, jumped upon the back of a short-tailed mule, put 
 his scanty baggage beliind him, and went gaily on his 
 way.* The goal of his journeys was probably not 
 always the same. In the mountains of Latium and the 
 
 ^ Some critics would see in this Epodc a parody of the Gcorgics. I 
 do not believe it. At most, Horace's raillery could only reach those 
 who thought thuni.srdves obliged to exaggerate the ideas of Virgil. 
 
 » EpisL, I. 7, 5. ^ Sat., II. 6, 18. * Ibid., I. 6, 105.
 
 Horace's cotJNTRY house, 19 
 
 Sabina, "along the slopes of the Appenines, by the 
 borders of the sea, there is no lack of pleasant and 
 healthy spots. Thither go the Eomans of to-day, to 
 pass the time of the malaria." ^ Horace doubtless 
 visited them also ; but he had his preferences, which he 
 expresses with great vivacity, putting before all the 
 rest Tibur and Tarentum, two places very distant and 
 very different from each other, but which seem to have 
 had an equal share of his affection. He probably often 
 returned to them, and although tastes change with age, 
 we have proof that he remained faithful to the last 
 to this affection of his youth. 
 
 Despite these yearly rovings, which sometimes took 
 him to the extremities of Italy, I cannot help thinking 
 that Horace long remained but a lukewarm friend of 
 the country. He had not yet a villa of his own, and 
 perhaps he was not sorry. He took a willing part in 
 the distractions of the great town, and, as we have seen, 
 only left it during the months when it is unwise to 
 stop there. Yet a moment came when these journeys, 
 from being a mere amusement, a passing pleasure, 
 became for him an imperious necessity ; when Eoman 
 life was so wearisome and hateful, that, like his friend 
 Bullatius, he felt a craving to hide himself in some 
 lonely townlet, and there " forget everybody and make 
 himself forgotten." 
 
 This feeling is very apparent in some parts of his 
 works, and it is very easy to see how it arose. 
 
 A wise man, instead of uselessly bewailing the 
 mischances that happen to him, seeks to turn them 
 
 1 EpisL, I. 2, 9.
 
 20 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to good account, and his past troubles serve him as a 
 lesson for the future. So I think it was with Horace. 
 The years first following his return from Philippi must 
 have been for him very fruitful in reflections and 
 resolutions of every kind. He has represented himself 
 at this epoch upon his little couch, musing on the 
 things of life, and asking himself, " How must I 
 conduct myself ? What had I best do ? " The best 
 thing for a man to do who had just suffered so sad a 
 disillusion was surely not to expose himself to a fresh 
 one. The disaster of Philippi had taught him much. 
 Henceforth he was cured of ambition. He had come 
 to know that honours cost dear, that in undertaking to 
 bring about the happiness of one's fellow-citizens one 
 risked one's own, and that there is no lot more happy 
 than his who keeps aloof from public life. This is what 
 he resolved to do himself, this is what he recommended 
 without ceasing to others. Doubtless his great friends 
 could not quite renounce politics or abandon the Porum. 
 He counselled them to take occasional distraction from 
 them. To Quintius, to Maecenas, to Torquatus, he said : 
 " Give yourselves then some leisure ; let your client dance 
 attendance in the ante-chamber and get away by some 
 back door. Forget Cantabria and Dacia : don't always be 
 thinking of the affairs of the Empire." As for him, he 
 promised himself faithfully never to think of them. 
 Far from complaining that he no longer had any part 
 in them, he was happy that their cares had been taken 
 from him. Otliers accused Augustus of having deprived 
 the liomans of their liberty ; he found that in freeing 
 them from the W(jrry of public afl'uirs lie had restored it 
 to them. To belong entirely to himself, to study him-
 
 Horace's country house. 21 
 
 self, to know himself, to make for himself, as it were, an 
 inward retreat in the midst of the crowd — in short, to live 
 for himself ; such for the future was his only thought. 
 
 But one seldom regulates one's life as one would. In 
 this as elsewhere, chance rules supreme. Events 
 delight to play havoc with the best-concerted resolu- 
 tions. The friendship of Maecenas, of course a very 
 happy thing for Horace, was not long in causing him 
 much embarrassment. It brought him into contact with 
 great personages whom he was obliged to treat affably, 
 although he often found it difficult to esteem them. He 
 was forced to associate withaDallius, called "the acrobat 
 of the civil wars " (desultor hellorum cixilium), because 
 of his skill in playing from one party to another; 
 witli Lucinius Mur.iena, who was levity itself, and 
 who finished by conspiring against Augustus ; with 
 Munatius Plaucus, the former flatterer of Antony 
 and the buffoon of Cleopatra, said to be a traitor 
 by temperament (morho pi^oditor). All wanted to 
 be thought intimate with him. They asked him 
 to address to them one of those little pieces 
 which did honour to him who received them. They 
 wished their names to be found in the collection of 
 those works which men thought predestined to im- 
 mortality. Horace did not like it ; it was doubtless 
 repugnant to him to appear the vulgar singer of the 
 court and the prince. So, even when obliged to yield, he 
 did not always do so with a good grace. For instance, he 
 only writes once to Agrippa, and it is to tell him that 
 he will not sing his praises, and to pass him on to 
 Varius, the successor of Homer, and alone worthy to 
 handle so fine a subject. He does not wish to busy himself
 
 22 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 with Augustus either. He pretends to be afraid of com- 
 promising his hero's glory by singing his praises badly, 
 and does not claim to have genius enough for so great 
 a work. But Augustus was not to be put off with this 
 excuse ; he pressed and prayed the too modest poet 
 again and again. " Know," he wrote to him, " that I am 
 angered at thy not yet having thought to address one of 
 thy epistles to me. Dost thou fear that in the after- 
 time it will be shameful for thee to seem to have been 
 my friend ? " ^ After these amiable words, Horace 
 could no longer resist, and from compliance to com- 
 pliance he found himself led against his inclination to 
 become the official poet of the dynasty. 
 
 Being seen allied with so many important men, the 
 familiar of Maecenas, the friend of the Emperor, he could 
 scarcely fail to be considered as a sort of personage. He 
 did not, it is true, fill any public office ; the most they had 
 left him was his knight's ring, won in the civil wars ; ^ 
 but, in order to have authority, it was not necessary to 
 wear the jpretcxta. Maecenas, who was nothing to him, 
 passed for the counsellor of Augustus : might not Horace 
 be suspected of being the confidant of Mtecenas ? See- 
 in*' him drive out with him, and sit in the theatre beside 
 him, everybody said : " What a happy man ! " ^ If the 
 two talked it was imagined they were debating the fate 
 of the world. In vain Horace affirmed upon his honour 
 that MaBcenas had only said to him : " What o'cloclc is 
 it ? It is very cold this morning ; " and otlier secrets 
 
 ^ Suetonius, Vita Horatii, p. 46 (Reifferscheid). 
 "■Sat., II. 7, 53. 
 
 ' All the following details are taken from the sixth Satire of 
 the Second Book, and the ninth of the last.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 23 
 
 of the like importance ; people wouldn't believe it. He 
 could no longer walk as formerly in the Forum and 
 the Field of Mars, listening to the quacks and fortune- 
 tellers, and asking the dealers the prices of their wares ; 
 he was watched, followed, approached at every step by 
 the unfortunate anc| the inquisitive. A newsmonger 
 wanted to know the situation of the armies ; a politician 
 asked him for information concerning the projects of 
 Augustus, and when he answered that he did not know 
 anything about these matters, they congratulated him 
 on his statesmanlike reserve and admired his diplomatic 
 discretion. He met on the Sacred Way an intriguer, who 
 begged him to introduce him to Maecenas : they brought 
 him petitions, they requested his support, they put 
 themselves under his protection. Envious people 
 accused him of being an egotist who wished to keep for 
 himself alone the favour he enjoyed, and enemies re- 
 called the story of his birth, triumphantly repeatino- 
 everywhere that he was only the son of a slaye. It is 
 true that this reproach did not afl'ect him, and what they 
 threw in his face as a disgrace, he boasted of as a title of 
 honour ; but meanwhile the days were passing. He was 
 no longer his own master, he could no longer live as he 
 liked, his dear liberty was being stolen from him every 
 moment. Of what use was it to have kept aloof from 
 public functions if he had all its plagues without en- 
 joying its advantages ? These worries maddened him, 
 Ptome became unbearable, and he doubless sought in his 
 mind some means of escaping from the bores who beset 
 him, and of regaining the peace and liberty he had lost. 
 It was then that Maecenas gave him the estate in 
 the Sabina — that is to say, a safe asylum to shelter him
 
 24 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 from the troublesome, where he was to live for himself 
 alone. Never was liberality more seasonably bestowed 
 or welcomed with such joy. The timeliness of the 
 benefit explains the warmth of his gratitude. 
 
 III. 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE IN THE SABINA — THE TEMPLE OF 
 VACUNA — EO GO AGIO VINE — FONTE DELU ORATINI — 
 PROBABLE POSITION OF THE HOUSE — EXTENT OF 
 HORACE'S DOMAIN — PLEASANTNESS OF THE SITE. 
 
 We now know how Horace became possessed of his 
 country house ; it remains for us to become acquainted 
 with its neighbourhood, and to ascertain whether it 
 deserves what the poet has said about it, and why it 
 pleased him. 
 
 It was, as we have seen, near Tivoli. The road 
 thither is the ancient Via Valeria, one of the most 
 important Roman routes to Italy, leading into the 
 territory of the Marsians. It follows the Anio and 
 traverses a fertile country surrounded by high 
 mountains, on whose summits stand some villages, true 
 eagles' nests, that from afar seem unapproachable. 
 Now and again one meets with ancient monuments, 
 and one treads beneath one's feet fragments of that 
 Eoman pavement, o'er which so many nations have 
 passed without being able to destroy it. In three or 
 four hours we reach Vicovaro, which, as I have already 
 said, was formerly Varia, the important town of the 
 neighbourhood. There we must leave the main road,
 
 VALLEY OF THE LICENZA 
 
 Horaces Country House. 
 
 K e«y 
 
 ^ ,' ^ r 
 
 , JIoj acx^s ^TJa 5^|i 'h^i 
 
 M^ih^ 
 
 
 \ih 
 
 ^ I 'fWv-' 
 
 V\^ 
 
 '^. 
 
 . u o\ liu o y^ ^5' ^ 
 
 i* f 1/ 
 
 yl ' 
 
 
 Scale 
 
 2Kil
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 25 
 
 and take to the left one which follows the banks of the 
 Licenza.i On the other side of the torrent, a little 
 higher than Vicovaro, we see Bardela, a large village, 
 with a castle that from a distance looks very well. It 
 was a village where Horace tells us one shivered with 
 cold : rugosus frigore pagus? Abbe Capmartin de 
 Chaupy remarked that the place really is sometimes 
 invaded by cold fogs descending from the adjacent 
 mountains. He tells us that one day when drawing, 
 " he felt himself seized from behind by a cold as piercing 
 as it was sudden," but as he is accused of partiality 
 to Horace, and wants all the assertions of his dear poet 
 to be verified to the letter, he may be suspected of 
 having put just a little goodwill into his shiver ! I 
 went that way in the month of April, about noon, and 
 found it very hot. After passing Bardela, at a turn of 
 the road, Eoccagiovine is seen to the left. It is one of 
 the most picturesque villages in the neighbourhood, 
 being perched upon a pointed rock that seems to have 
 become detached from the mass of the mountain. The 
 way up to it is rough, and while fatiguing myself in the 
 ascent, the expression used by Horace came home to 
 me ; he tells us that to get home again he has to " scale 
 his citadel." ^ 
 
 There occurs a landmark which will serve to direct 
 us. In a charming epistle addressed by Horace to one 
 of his best friends to tell him how much he loves the 
 country, and that of all the good things of Rome he only 
 
 ^ The map of the Licenza valley here given was designed from a very 
 detailed and exact topographical plan kindly furnished me by JI. 
 Tito Berti. 
 
 ^Epist., I. 18, 105. ^Sat., II. 6, 15.
 
 26 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 regrets to have no longer the pleasure of seeing him, he 
 ends his letter by saying that he has written it behind 
 the ruined temple of Vacuna: Hcec tibi dictaham 
 fanum jjost putre Vacuncc} 
 
 Vacuna was a goddess much honoured among the 
 Sabines, and Varro tells us that she was the same as the 
 one called " Victory " in Eome. Near the village a 
 fine inscription has been found, from which we learn that 
 Vespasian has rebuilt at his own expense the Temple 
 of Victory, which was almost destroyed by age : JJ!dem 
 Victoricc vetustate dilapsam sua impcnsa resiitnit. The 
 coincidence has led it to be thought that the edifice re- 
 built by Vespasian was the same that was falling into ruin 
 in the time of Horace. In restoring the temple the 
 Emperor gave the goddess her Eoman name, in lieu of 
 the other, which was no longer understood. To-day the 
 inscription is set in the walls of the old castle, and the 
 square hard by has been named by the inhabitants 
 Piazza Vacuna. Horace, then, is not quite forgotten 
 in the place he lived in eighteen centuries ago. 
 
 If you want to know to the life what Sabine villages 
 are like, you must climb up to rtoccagiovine. Nothing 
 is more picturesque so long as one is content to look at 
 them from a distance. Catching sight of them from 
 the valley, crowning some high mountain and pressing 
 round the church or the castle, one is delighted with 
 them. But all changes as soon as one gets inside. 
 Tlie houses now are only tumbledown hovels, the 
 streets infected alleys paved with dung. One cannot 
 take a step without meeting pigs walking about. In all 
 
 ' EpisL, I. 10, 49.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 27 
 
 the Sabiua the pigs are the masters of the land. They 
 are aware of their importance and do not disturb them- 
 selves for anybody. The streets belong to them, and 
 sometimes the houses. It must have been just the same 
 in the time of the Eomans. Then also they formed the 
 chief wealth of the country, and Varro never speaks of 
 them but with the greatest respect. I saw one there in 
 the piazza, wallowing with an air of delight in a black 
 stagnant pool, and immediately called to mind this 
 charming passage of the great farmer : " They roll in 
 the filth, which for them is a way of refreshing them- 
 selves, as for men to take a bath." But one finds 
 antiquity again everywhere. The women we meet are 
 nearly all beautiful, but with a vigorous malculine 
 beauty. We recognise those sturdy Sabine women of 
 old, burnt by| the sun, accustomed to the heaviest 
 tasks.i At the end of the valley I see a railway in 
 course of construction ; women are mingled with the 
 workmen, and, like them, carry stones upon their heads- 
 There are scarcely any men in the village at the hour 
 we pass through it, but we are surrounded by a crowd 
 of robust children with eyes full of fire and intjelligence. 
 They are curious and troublesome — their usual fault, but 
 at least they do not hold out their hands, as at Tivoli, 
 where there are so many beggars. In this out-of-the- 
 way spot, the blood has been kept pure. These are the 
 remains of a strong proud race that bore a good part in 
 the fortunes of Eome. 
 
 If, as we may believe, Roccagiovine is built on the 
 site of the Fanum Vacunce, here Horace's estate must 
 
 ^Carm., III. 6, 37.
 
 28 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 have begun. So, bearing to the right, we continue the 
 ascent by a stony road shaded here and there by wahiut 
 trees and oaks. Before us, on the mountain sides, 
 cultivated fields are spread out, with a few rustic dwell- 
 ings. Nothing appears on the horizon like the ruins of 
 an ancient house, and at first we are in doubt as to 
 whither we ought to wend our steps. But we remember 
 that Horace tells us there was close to his house a spring 
 which never dried up, an uncommon quality in southern 
 countries, and which was important enough to give its 
 name to the rivulet into which it fell. If the house has 
 disappeared, the spring, at least, must still be there; and 
 when we have found it, it will be easy to fix the place 
 of the rest. We follow a little path skirting an old 
 church in ruins — the Madonna delta Casa — and a little 
 lower we come upon the spring we are seeking. The 
 country people call it Fonte dell 'Oraiini or Fonte de' 
 Ratini; is it by chance that it has kept a name so near 
 akin to that of the poet ? ^ In any case it is very diffi- 
 cult not to believe it to be the one of which he has 
 spoken to us. There is not a more important one in the 
 vicinity ; it gushes abundantly from the hollow rock, 
 and an old fig-tree covers it with its shade. I know 
 not whether, as Horace asserts,^ "its waters are good 
 
 ^ F<yiis etiam rivo dare nomen idoneus. — Epist., I. 16, 12. M. Pietro 
 Rosa bids us remark that to-day the Licenza still only takes its 
 name from the moment it receives the waters of the little fountain. 
 Till then it is only called il Rivo (the brook). See the notice which 
 Noel des Vergers has put at the beginning of Didot's Hoi-ace. 
 
 2 This is quite how Horace has described the fount of Bandusia 
 {Carm., III. 13, 1). He speaks of this " oak placed above the hol- 
 low rock from which gushed the prattling wave." It is known to-day 
 that Bandusia was situated in Aquilia, near Venusia, But it is quite
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 29 
 
 for the stomach and relieve the head,"^ but they are 
 fresh and limpid. The spot round about them is charm- 
 ing, quite fitted for reverie, and I can understand how 
 the poet counted among the happiest moments of his 
 day, those when he came to take a little rest here: 
 2}rope rivum somnus in herhap- 
 
 The position of the spring found again, that of the 
 house may be guessed. Since Horace tells us they were 
 near each other,^ we need only seek in the vicinity. 
 Capraartin de Chaupy placed the house much lower, 
 near the bottom of the valley, in a place where some 
 remains of ancient walls and pavement still were 
 to be found. But these remains seem to be of later 
 date than the time of Augustus. Besides, we know 
 from Horace himself that he lived on a steep 
 plateau, and he speaks of his house as of a sort of 
 fortress. I believe then that M. Pietro Eosa was right 
 in placing it a little higher. He supposed it must be a 
 little above the Madonna dclla Casa. Just there an 
 artificial terrace is remarked, apparently arranged in 
 order to serve as the placement of a house. The soil 
 has long since been under cultivation ; but the plough 
 often turns up bits of brick and broken tiles that seem 
 to have formed part of an ancient building. Is it here 
 that the house of Horace really stood ? M. Eosa 
 
 possible that Horace may have given to the little spring that flowed 
 near his house the name of the one where he had so often slaked his 
 thirst in his youth, ere he quitted his birthplace. The resemblance 
 between the landscape described in the Ode of Horace and the real site 
 of the fountain delV Oratini renders this hypothesis very probable. 
 
 ^ EpisL, I. 16, 14 ; Infirino eapitifluit xctilis, utili alvo. 
 
 - lbid.,l.li,Zi.
 
 30 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 believes so. It is certain, in any case, that it could not 
 have been far distant.^ 
 
 From this elevated spot let lis cast our eyes over the 
 surrounding country. Below us we have a long, narrow 
 valley, at whose bottom flows the torrent of the Licenza. 
 It is dominated by mountains which seem to meet on 
 every side. To the left the Licenza turns so sharply 
 that one cannot perceive the gorge into which it plunges ; 
 to the right the cliff on which Roccagiovine sits perched 
 seems to have rolled into the valley to close its ingress, 
 so that no issue is seen on any side. I recognise the 
 landscape as it is described by Horace : — 
 
 " Continui monies, nisi dissocicntur opaca. 
 
 Vaiur- 
 
 Having glanced over this fine assemblage of moun- 
 tains, I return to what must interest us above all. 
 I ask myself, in the extent of grounds which my eyes 
 take in, what could have belonged to the poet ? He 
 has never expressed himself clearly as to the true limits 
 of his domain. Occasionally he seems desirous to 
 diminish its importance — his house is only a cottage 
 (villula)^ surrounded by a tiny little field (agellus),'^ of 
 
 ' I must say, however, that the opinion of Capmartin de Chaupy 
 and of De Sanctis is that which prevails in the neif;hhourhood. It has 
 lately been taken up again and strongly maintained by M. Tito Berti 
 (see the FavfuUa chlla domenica, 1st November 1885). In spite of the 
 reasons given by M. Berti, however, the site pointed out by De Chaupy 
 appears to me somewhat too near the Licenza and rather too low. 
 But there certainly was the house of a rich Roman in this spot. M. 
 Berti has found interesting mosaic pavements there, and perhaps it 
 would be useful to push the excavations a little further. Care has 
 been taken to mark on the site where Chaupy and M. Rosa respec- 
 tively place the house of Horace. 
 
 - EpisL, I. 16, 5. 3 Sat., II. 3, 10. •• EphL, I. 14, 1.
 
 Horace's country house. 31 
 
 which even his farmer speaks with contempt. But 
 Horace is a prudent man who wilhngly depreciates him- 
 self in order to escape envy. I think that in reality 
 his estate in the Sabina must have been pretty extensive. 
 " Thou hast made me rich," ^ he one day told Maecenas 
 — doubtless not rich like those great lords and knights 
 who possessed immense fortunes, but surely much more 
 so than he had ever wished to become or dreamt of becom- 
 ing. However moderate by nature, few deny themselves 
 an occasional excess in their dreams. Horace tells us 
 that these ideal excesses, these dreams which he formed 
 in his youth without hoping ever to see them accom- 
 plished, were far surpassed by the reality : 
 " AucHus atque 
 Di melius^ facere"' 
 
 We possess information which will give us a very 
 correct idea of Horace's estate. He did not keep all 
 the ground on his own account. The trouble of farm- 
 ing on a large scale would not have suited him at all. 
 So he let out a part to five freemen, who had each his 
 house, and who went on the nundince or market days 
 to Varia, either on their own business or that of the 
 little community.^ Five farmers presuppose a pretty 
 large estate, and it must be added that what he kept 
 for himself was not without some importance, since 
 eight slaves were required to cultivate it.* It seems to 
 me then that a great part of the grounds around me, 
 from the top of the mountain to the Licenza, must have 
 been his. This extensive space contained, so to speak, 
 different zones, which admitted of varied species of 
 
 ^ Twmefecistiocuplctem.—Epist., I. 7, 15. 
 
 2 Sat., II. 6, 3. '^Epist., I. 14, 2. * Sat., II. 7, 118.
 
 32 THE COUNTRY OF HOE ACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 husbandry, afforded the owner various temperatures, 
 and consequently offered him distractions and pleasures 
 of more than one kind. In the middle, half-way up 
 the hill, was the house with its dependencies. All we 
 know of the house is that it was simple, neither gilded 
 wainscoting, ivory ornaments, nor marbles of Hymettus 
 and Africa being seen in it.^ This luxury was not 
 suitable for the depths of the Sabina. Near the house 
 there was a garden which must have contained fine 
 regular quincunxes and straight alleys shut in by 
 hedges of hornbeam, as was then the fashion. Horace 
 somewhere speaks against the mania affected by people 
 of his time for changing the elm, which unites with the 
 vine, for the plane-tree — the bachelor tree, as he calls it ; 
 and he attacks those who are lavish in violet beds and 
 myrtle fields, " vain olfactory riches," - as he calls them. 
 Did he remain faithful to his principles and allow 
 himself no pleasure ? and was his garden quite like 
 Cato's, where only useful trees and plants were found ? 
 I should not like to say so too positively. More than 
 once it has happened to him not to apply to himself 
 the precepts he gives to others, and to be more rigorous 
 in his verse than in his life. Below the house and the 
 garden the ground was fertile. It is here those crops 
 grew, which, as Horace says, never deceived his 
 expectations.' Here, too, perhaps, he culled that wine 
 which he served at his table in coarse amphorae, 
 and which he does not praise to M.Tcenas.* Yet a 
 
 ' Carm., II. 18, 1. ^ Ibid., II. 15, 6. 
 
 3 Ibid., III. 3, 16, 30 : Segetis certa fides mece. 
 
 * There is some uncertainty as to whether Horace's estate produced 
 wine. The poet seems to contradict himself on this point. In the
 
 k 
 
 Horace's country house. 33 
 
 little further down, towards the banks of the Licenza, 
 the soil became damper, and meads took the place of 
 cultivated fields. Then as now the torrent, swollen by 
 storm rains, sometimes left its bed, and spread over the 
 surrounding ground, causing Horace's farmer to grumble, 
 since he dolefully foresaw that he would have to make 
 a dyke to protect the land from the flood.^ But if the 
 country was smiling towards the bottom of the valley, 
 above the house it became more and more wild. 
 Here were brambles " rich in sloes and red cornel," ^ 
 with oaks and holms covering the slopes of the moun- 
 tain. In his youthful dreams of which I spoke just 
 now, the poet asked nothing of the gods but a clump 
 of trees to crown his little field.^ Mtecenas had done 
 things better; Horace's wood covered several jvgera. 
 There was enough of it " to feed the liock with acorns, 
 and furnish the master a thick shade." 
 
 Horace, then, had not received from his patron 
 merely a little scribbler's corner of a garden, " a lizard's 
 hole," as Juvenal says ; it was a real estate, with pasture 
 lands, fields, woods, and a complete rustic equipment, 
 at the same time a pleasure and a fortune. How had 
 this estate fallen into the hands of Maecenas ? It is 
 not known. Some scandal-mongers have suggested that 
 
 epistle to his villicus, he says, "This corner of ground would rather 
 grow incense and pepper than a bunch of grapes." Elsewhere he 
 invites Altecenas to dinner, and tells him he can only give him a 
 middling Sabine wine of his own bottling, which seems to show that 
 he gathered it himself {Carm., I. 20). But vines certainly grow in the 
 Licenza valley, and at Roccagiovine one drinks a wine now that 
 is not bad. 
 
 ^i:pist., I. 14, 29. ^Ibid., I. 16, 9. 
 
 '£i Ijaulum sihce super hisforet. — Sat., II, 6, 3, 
 
 C
 
 34 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 it might very well have been confiscated from political 
 enemies, and that probably Maecenas jj^ave his friend 
 lands not his own. These inexpensive liberalities were 
 not uncommon at that time. It is said that Augustus 
 one day offered Virgil the fortune of an exile, and that 
 the poet refused it.^ I hope that Horace was not less 
 delicate than his friend. But these are mere hypotheses, 
 which must not stop us. All we know about Horace's 
 estate is that it was in a very bad condition when given 
 to him. The ground was covered with thorns and 
 brambles, and it was long since the plough had passed 
 over it.2 When he took possession, he was so unwise 
 as to bring to direct the works one of those town slaves, 
 who, according to Columella, are only a lazy, sleepy 
 race {socors et somniculosum genus).^ All the wretch 
 knew about the country was doubtless from the well- 
 kept gardens round about Eome. "When he got to the 
 Sabina, and saw those untilled fields that had been 
 given him to cultivate, he thought that he had fallen 
 into a wilderness, and begged to be allowed to go away 
 again at once. Horace himself, in spite of his love for 
 his property, has not exaggerated its merits. The soil, he 
 tells us, is far from being so fertile as that of Calabria, 
 and above all, the vines here are much inferior to those 
 of Campania.'* What he praises without reserve is the 
 temperature,^ equal in all seasons ; being neither too 
 cold in winter nor too hot in summer. He is inex- 
 haustible in his praises on this point, and one under- 
 stands that he should be keenly alive to it. Is there a 
 
 i Donat., Vita Vlrg., 5. " EphL, I. 14, 27. ^Colum., I. 8, 1. 
 *Carm., III. 16, 33. ^ Einst., I. 16, 8 ; see also I. 10, 15.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 35 
 
 greater pleasure, on leaving the Eoman furnace behind 
 one, than to take refuge in a charming retreat where 
 the shade of the great trees and the fresh wind of the 
 mountains allows one at least to breathe ? 
 
 I remark also that he has never exaggerated the 
 beauty of the scenery round about his country house. 
 An owner's partiality does not mislead him to compare 
 it to the famous sites of Italy — to Baia, to Tibur, to 
 Prieneste. Baia, he tells us, is one of the wonders of 
 the world ; nothing so beautiful is elsewhere seen : 
 
 "Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis frcelucit amcenis." ^ 
 
 Prseneste also is an admirable spot, whence one 
 enjoys one of the most varied and extensive views 
 imaginable. Horace enjoyed being there very much, 
 and returned again and again. It must be owned that 
 the Licenza valley has nothing like it, and it would not 
 surprise me if a traveller coming from Palestrina or 
 Tivoli were to feel disappointed. That would be his 
 fault and not Horace's, who has not tried to deceive us. 
 If at first our expectation is not quite satisfied, we 
 should only blame ourselves. He has nowhere asserted 
 that this little solitary valley is the most beautiful 
 spot in the world, as he has of Baia ; he simply tells us 
 he was happy here. Can one not be happy without 
 always having an immense horizon before one, and 
 living in a perpetual ecstasy ? One must exaggerate 
 nothing, in any direction. If the Sabine valley is not 
 comparable to the beautiful sites I have just spoken of, 
 it is still, in its small proportions, very pleasant. Let 
 me add that many things must have changed since 
 
 ^JUpisL, I. 1, 83.
 
 36 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 ancient times. Now the mountains are bare ; they were 
 formerly covered with trees. To realise what they 
 must have been like, I deck them in thouglit with that 
 admirable little wood of green oaks you pass through 
 on your way to the scuro speco of Subiaco. The valley 
 is no longer like what it used to be ; it has lost the 
 shades which Horace loved so well, and which reminded 
 him of Tarentum : 
 
 " Credas adduction propius frondere Tarentum." ^ 
 
 But what has not changed, what used to be and 
 still is the characteristic of this charming valley, is its 
 calm, its tranquillity, its silence. At noon, from the 
 Madonna dclla Casa one hears only the subdued sound 
 of the torrent rising from the bottom of the valley. 
 Here is just what Horace came in search of. Extra- 
 ordinary sights cast the mind into a kind of ravishment 
 that excites and troubles it. It is a fatigue which in 
 the long run he would have ill borne. He did not 
 wish Nature to draw him too much to her, and prevent 
 him from belonging to himself. So nothing suited him 
 better than this tranquil landscape where all is repose 
 and meditation. Athough he was here near Eome, and 
 as a rule his docked mule could take him thither in a 
 day, he might think himself a thousand leagues off.^ 
 
 1 EpisL, I. 16, 11. 
 
 - Horace tells us, in the Satire descriptive of his journey to Brindisi, 
 that active people pressed for time could cover 43 Roman miles (about 
 38 English miles) in a day. He, who liked his ease, took two dnys for 
 tlie journey. The second day he went 27 miles. The distance from 
 Rouie to the villa in the Sabina must have been from 31 to 32 miles 
 (about 28 English miles). The journey then could be done in a day. It 
 is probable, however, that Horace, not wishing to tire himself, often 
 slept at Tibur. It has been thought that in order to avoid going to
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 37 
 
 This is what he did not find elsewhere. At Prseneste, 
 when he went to sit and read Homer on the steps of 
 the temple of Fortune, he perceived the walls of the 
 great town in the haze. At Baia he met young folk 
 intent on their noisy jollities. It was Eome again, 
 seen from a distance or elbowed in the streets. Eome 
 did not come into the valley of the Sabina, for who 
 among these young elegants would have dared to 
 venture into the mountains beyond Tibur ? Horace, 
 then, was really at home there. He could say, when he 
 put his foot into his domain, " Here I no longer 
 belong to the importunate ; I have left the cares and 
 worries of the town ; at length I live and am my own 
 master, vivo et regno." 
 
 IV. 
 
 RENOWN OF Horace's country house among the poets 
 
 OF ROME — situation OF POETS IN ROME — RELATIONS 
 OF HORACE AND MAECENAS TO EACH OTHER — HOW 
 THE POET MADE THE GREAT LORD RESPECT HIM. 
 
 The villa in the Sabine hills, which holds so great a 
 
 the inn, he bought or hired a little house there, as was the custom 
 of rich Romans. Suetonius even assures us that in his time they used 
 to show at Tihnr a house said to have belonged to him. In reality 
 this assertion is not based on any precise text of the poet. When 
 he tells us that he returns to Tibur, or that he likes to live there, 
 the name of the town is probably taken for that of its territory. 
 M. Caniille JuUian has shown, in the Melanges d' archeologie et 
 d'kistoirc, published by the Ecole Fran^aise of Rome, that Tibur, 
 although of Latin origin, was the chief town of a Sabine district, 
 and that the territory of Varia was dependent on it. It may then 
 be understood that when Horace speaks of Tibur he means his house 
 in the Sabina.
 
 38 TITE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 place in Horace's life, occupies no less a one in the 
 history of literature. From the day when Maecenas 
 presented it to his friend, this quiet house with its 
 garden, its spring hard by, and its little wood, has 
 become an ideal towards which poets of all times have 
 had their eyes directed. Those of Eorae tried to attain it 
 in the same way that Horace had done.^ They applied to 
 the generosity of rich people, and tried by their verses to 
 arouse their self-love. I do not know any among them 
 to whom this business seemed repugnant, and Juvenal 
 himself, who passes for a fiery republican, has pro- 
 claimed that there is no future for poetry other than the 
 protection of the prince.^ This is also the opinion of 
 his friend Martial, who has made a kind of general 
 theory of it, which he sets forth with singular naivete. 
 There is, according to him, a sure recipe for the produc- 
 tion of great poets ; you have only to pay them well. 
 
 " Sint Mcecenates non deerent Flacce, Marones.'' ^ 
 
 Had Virgil remained poor, he would have done 
 nothing better than the Bucolics. Happily, he had a 
 liberal protector, who said to him : " Here is fortune, 
 here is the wherewithal to give you all the pleasures of 
 life ; tackle the Epic." And he at once composed the 
 JSneid. The method is infallible, and the result assured. 
 The poor poet would have very much liked the experi- 
 ment to be made on him ; and he would have asked 
 nothing better than to become, for a fair consideration, 
 a man of genius. So he wore out his life in offering 
 
 ^EpisL, I. 10, 8. 
 
 2 Juv., Sal., VII. 1 : Et spex et ratio stiidiorum in Cw^nre tantum. 
 
 8 Martial, VIII. f.6.
 
 Horace's country house. 39 
 
 himself to every protector in turn ; ^ none would agree 
 to make the experiment ; the time of the Mcecenates 
 was past. 
 
 This baseness arouses the indignation of not a 
 few persons, who feel called upon to expatiate on the 
 subject. They begin by attacking Martial, and end 
 by striking Horace. They have been answered more 
 than once that what they call meanness was merely a 
 necessity, and it has been shown that literature in those 
 days did not give its followers enough to live on.^ 
 Until the invention of printing no clear idea of the 
 rights of authorship could have existed. Once pub- 
 lished, a book belonged to everybody. Nothing pre- 
 vented those who got hold of it from having it copied 
 as many times as they chose, and selling the copies 
 they did not want. It was all very well for the book- 
 seller to buy of the author the right to bring his book 
 before the world ; but as nothing assured him the 
 durable property of the work, and as, when it had once 
 appeared, all who possessed copyist slaves in their 
 houses could reproduce and spread it, he paid very 
 little for it, and what he gave did not suffice the author 
 for his livelihood.""^ If, then, the author did not wish to 
 
 ^ Martial, I. 107, 3 : Otia da nobis, sed qualia facerat dim 
 Mcccenas flacco Virgil ioque suo. 
 
 - See above all what Friedlffinder says on this subject in his Bistoire 
 des mof.urs Romaines. Curious particulars will be found in the fourth 
 volume of the French translation. 
 
 * Martial regrets not being able to derive from his books suflBcient pro- 
 fit to buy a little corner where he can sleep in peace (X. 84). He tells 
 us elsewhere that his verses are sold and read in Britain. " But what 
 boots it? " he adds; "my purse knows nothing about it" (XI. 3, 5), 
 which proves that the booksellers of that country did not pay him.
 
 40 ■ THr: COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 die of hunger, he had no resource but to apply to some 
 important personage and solicit his liberality. 
 
 It has also been remarked that what appears to us 
 base and humiliating in this necessity was greatly 
 diminished and almost cloaked by the institution of 
 clientship. This was an ancient, honourable, national 
 institution, protected by religion and the laws. The 
 client was not dishonoured by the services which he 
 rendered to his patron and the payment which he 
 received from him ; no one thouglit it strange that a 
 great lord should pay with his money, aid with his 
 influence, and feed in his house a crowd of people who 
 came to greet him in the morning, formed his train 
 when he walked abroad, supported his candidatures, 
 applauded him in the tribune, and abused his 
 opponents. Nor did anyone find fault with his in- 
 cluding among these clients poets who sang his exploits, 
 historians who celebrated his ancestors, and philologists 
 who dedicated their works to him. This kind of depend- 
 ence did not appear at all humiliating, and the clients 
 profited by the popularity enjoyed by their principal. I 
 may add that the writers who entered the house of a great 
 lord in this way were usually a very humble kind of 
 people, who had no right to be squeamish. Some, like 
 Martial, had left a distant province where they had lived 
 wretchedly in order to come and seek their fortune ; tlie 
 others were generally former slaves. At Rome slavery 
 recruited literature and the arts. Among the masters of 
 slaves it was a speculation to give some of them a good 
 education in order to sell them dear. These often 
 became distinguished men, who were made tutors and 
 secretaries, and who were sometimes also writers and
 
 Horace's country house. 41 
 
 poets of merit. When they had won their liberty, 
 which did not always endow them with means, they 
 had nothing better to do than to attach themselves to 
 an old master, or to some generous patron who offered 
 them protection. For people of such an origin client- 
 ship was not a decline. From servitude it was, on the 
 contrary, a progress. This is how men of letters were 
 so long the clients of the rich, without anybody appear- 
 ing shocked or even surprised. Afterwards, when 
 public instruction was organised in Eome and in the 
 provinces, they became professors. During these cen- 
 turies, the philologists, philosophers, and rhetoricians 
 attached to the great schools of the Empire were at the 
 same time historians and poets, and consecrated the 
 leisure left them by their functions to literature. This 
 position was assuredly better for their dignity and 
 independence ; but it had counterbalancing drawbacks 
 of which this is not the place to speak. 
 
 It is conceivable that all these starvelings in search 
 of a Miecenas, whom it was not easy to find, should have 
 imagined nothing more happy than the lot of Horace. 
 They not only envied him the grant of the estate in the 
 Sabina, but they could not get over their surprise when 
 they saw him live on such familiar terms with his pro- 
 tector. They did not enjoy the same good fortune. 
 When they came to greet the master in the morning, 
 he scarcely vouchsafed them recognition and a smile. 
 He left them talking with his steward, who took a good 
 deal of asking before he would distribute to them the 
 six or seven sesterces (about fifteen pence) composing 
 the sportula. If the patron deigned to invite them to 
 dinner, it was to humiliate them by all sorts of affronts.
 
 42 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 They were made to sit at some table apart, where they 
 were rudely treated by the slaves. While lobsters, 
 murenas, and pullets large as geese passed before their 
 eyes for the favoured guests, they were served with 
 only a few crabs or gudgeon caught near the drains 
 and fattened on the filth of the Tiber.^ Being humble 
 from necessity and proud by character, these outrages 
 made them indignant, although they were always ready 
 to expose themselves to them. Whenever they had 
 endured them, they could not help thinking of Horace, 
 a man of letters, the son of a slave, who not only sat at 
 the table of a minister of state among the greatest 
 personages, but was invited to his house and treated 
 almost as an equal. This occasioned them as much 
 admiration as astonishment. So in time a sort 
 of legend came into being on the subject of this 
 intimacy between the favourite of the Emperor and the 
 poet. It seemed that nothing had ever troubled its 
 serenity. There was, as it were, a perpetual combat of 
 generosity and gratitude between the two friends, the 
 one ever giving, the other ever thanking, while around 
 them the society of Eome stood in ecstasy before the 
 affecting picture. 
 
 The reality does not quite resemble the legend. It 
 is less edifying perhaps, but more instructive, and 
 above all it does greater honour to Horace. When his 
 contemporaries congratulated him on having slipped 
 into M.Tcenas' friendship as on a happy chance, he 
 proudly answered that chance had nothing to do with 
 it.2 He would have made the same reply to the men 
 
 iJuv., Snt., V. 80, d scq. ^ IhicL, I. 6, 52.
 
 Horace's country house. 43 
 
 of letters of the following ceutury, who attributed the 
 position which he made himself in a world for which 
 he was not born solely to the good fortune he had of 
 living in a favourable atmosphere, and the esteem then 
 professed for literature and the lettered. They were 
 mistaken. This position had cost him more than one 
 battle. He had won it, had maintained it by the firm- 
 ness of his character ; he owed it to himself alone. He 
 could apply to himself the famous saying of old Appius 
 Claudius, for he alone was " the artisan of his fortune." 
 I have often heard rigorous moralists treat Horace 
 severely, and speak of him as of a mean and servile 
 person. Beule even declared one day that he should be 
 banished from the schools, because he had only bad 
 lessons to teach our youth. Does youth then no longer 
 require to be taught how to come off well in delicate 
 situations, to live with the greatest without abasing 
 itself, to maintain its freedom with all while wounding 
 the dignity of none, — in fine, to grasp, between the 
 rudeness that loses all and the obsequiousness which 
 dishonours, that degree of adroit honesty which no one 
 can do without in life ? 
 
 That the connection between Horace and Maecenas 
 was entirely free from storms cannot be admitted. The 
 most tender and intimate friendships are also the most 
 delicate, and those in which the least friction produces 
 the most sensible effects. Minds, in approaching each 
 other, clash. This is the law; the indifferent alone 
 never quarrel. However great the sympathy which 
 drew Horace to his friend, causes of disagreement were 
 not wanting. First of all, Mfecenas was a poet, and a 
 very bad poet. His verses — obscure, laboured, and full
 
 44 THE COUNTRY OF IIOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 of mannered expressions — seemed made on purpose to 
 drive a man of taste crazy. What must Horace think, 
 and what could he say, when he was admitted to the 
 honour of hearing them ? What danger if he dared to 
 express liis sentiments ! What a humiliation for him, 
 and wliat a triumph for his enemies, if he were reduced 
 to admire them ! We do not know how Horace avoided 
 this rock in intimate intercourse ; but it at least is 
 certain that in his works he never said a word about 
 Maecenas' verses. He calls him a learned man {dode 
 Maecenas), but of all his w^orks he only speaks of a 
 history in prose, not yet begun, and which was probably 
 never finished. He might praise it without compromis- 
 ing himself. This prudent reserve seems not to have 
 wounded Ma?cenas, which proves him a clever man, 
 devoid of the littleness of the professional author. It 
 does honour to the two friends. 
 
 A thing of greater peril for Horace was the mixture 
 of men of the world and men of letters found in the 
 palace of the Esquiline. These two classes are not 
 always in unison with each other, and when one tries 
 to make them live together there is a risk of collision. 
 In Maecenas' house the men of the world belonged to 
 the highest Iloman aristocracy. They were persons of 
 refined taste, who knew and respected all observances — 
 slaves to the fashion of the day, and sometimes its 
 creators. They could not help indulging in raillery 
 when they saw their neighbours, the men of letters, 
 fail in those sacred customs which are rigorous laws 
 for some few months, and then .suddenly become ridi- 
 culous anachronisms. Sometimes the poor poets com- 
 mitted this unpardonable crime without knowing it.
 
 Horace's country house. 45 
 
 They did not always obey the rules which the master 
 had set forth in his book concerning his toilette {de 
 Cultu suo). They arrived ill - combed, ill - shod, ill- 
 dressed ; they wore old linen under a new tunic ; ^ they 
 had not taken time to adjust their toga properly. 
 Seeing them thus accoutred, those present burst out 
 laughing, and Msecenas laughed like the rest, I do not 
 tliink the victims of these railleries felt them much. 
 Virgil, who was absent-minded, did not perceive them. 
 Horace accepted them with a good grace ; but, being 
 malicious, sometimes took his revenge. Those great 
 lords also were not without their oddities and absurdi- 
 ties, which could not escape so acute a wit. Fashion- 
 able life had then become very exigent and refined, 
 and possessed its code and its laws. Dinners especially 
 had assumed a great importance, and were regarded as 
 a veritable affair of state. Varro, always pedantic and 
 grave, even in trifles, undertook to set forth didacti- 
 cally all the conditions which a repast must fulfil in 
 order to be perfect.- It was a very complicated science, 
 and those who surrounded Maecenas piqued themselves 
 on practising it to perfection. Horace has laughed at 
 this affectation in two of his Satires — the one in which 
 he shows us the Epicurean Catius busied in collecting 
 the precepts of the kitchen ; the other where he de- 
 scribes the dinner of Nasidienus, one of those learned 
 in the art of entertaining one's guests. The two 
 pictures are very entertaining — the Epicurean amusing 
 us by the gravity with which he expounds his precepts ; 
 while the other provokes our mirth by the fastidious 
 
 1 E^sL, I. 1, 95. 2 Aulu-GeUe, XIII. 11.
 
 46 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 pains he takes to maintain liis reputation, and the 
 comical mishaps which disconcert his plans. These 
 railleries struck well-known personages, the friends of 
 MiBcenas ; and it may be suspected that something 
 of them must have rebounded on Maecenas himself. 
 Did he not encourage the follies of Nasidienus by 
 going to dine with him ? Had he not, like Catius, 
 invented new dishes, of which Pliny tells us that his 
 authority made them fashionable while he lived, but 
 that they could not survive him ? ^ 
 
 These, I own, are little differences of but small 
 importance. The real difficulties began somewhat 
 later, and arose from the liberalities of Maecenas them- 
 selves. The benefits of the great are chains. Horace 
 knew this, but at least he tried to make his light. At 
 fiirst he would not take all that was offered him. In 
 the ardour of his friendship Miecenas wished to give 
 him more and more every day. Horace only accepted 
 the estate in the Sabina. " It is enough ; it is even too 
 much," he told him. 
 
 " Satis superque me henignitas tua, 
 Ditacit." 2 
 
 He made it also understood that he could, in case of 
 need, even do without this estate which made him so 
 happy, and did so at the moment when he was enjoying 
 it with the greatest zest. " If Fortune stay true to me, 
 I thank her ; but when she shakes her wings to fly 
 from me, I'll give her back her gifts; I will wrap me in 
 my worth ; I can content me with an honest poverty." ^ 
 
 1 Pliny, Ilisl. Nat., VIII. 43 (68). - Epode, I. 31. ; 
 
 » Carm., III. 29, 53.
 
 Horace's country house. 47 
 
 Here is Msecenas well warned. His friend will not 
 sacrifice his independence to his fortune ; he will 
 become poor again rather than cease to be free. A day 
 came when he felt it necessary to say so still more 
 clearly. He had left Eome at the beginning of August, 
 promising to remain in the country only four or five 
 days. But once arrived, he felt so comfortable there 
 that he forgot to keep his promise. An entire month 
 passed without his being able to tear himself away. 
 Maecenas, who could no longer live without him, com- 
 plained with some bitterness ; perhaps hinting in his 
 letter that he had reckoned on more gratitude. We 
 have in Horace's reply certainly one of his best produc- 
 tions.^ It is impossible to clothe greater firmness in 
 a gentler guise. Through agreeable narrations and 
 pleasing apologues, his resolution shows itself as pre- 
 cisely and clearly as possible. He will not return in a 
 few days, as is requested of him ; so long as autumn 
 lasts he will not expose himself to the fevers. Nay, 
 more, if the winter promises to be severe, if the Alban 
 mount is capped with snow, he will descend on the side 
 of the sea, and shut himself in some warm retreat to 
 work at his ease. It is only in spring, " with the first 
 swallow," that he will be back. This term, as we see, is 
 very indefinite. He purposely makes it so. One would 
 think that he was resolved by a definitive trial both to 
 make his liberty accepted by others and prove it to 
 himself. In order to preserve it, he is ready to give 
 back all that he has received {cuncta resigno). The 
 house in the Sabina itself would seem to him too 
 
 1 Epist., I. 7.
 
 48 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 dearly bought by the sacrifice of his repose and inde- 
 pendence. " When one sees in an exchange that what 
 one receives is worth less than what one gives, one 
 must leave at once what one has taken and retake what 
 one has relinquished." Miecenas knew by this resolute 
 tone that Horace had come to his decision, and did not 
 renew his exigency. In a word, the conduct of the 
 poet on this occasion was as clever as it was honour- 
 able. He knew that friendship demands a certain 
 equality between the persons it unites. By avoiding 
 exaggerated submissiveness, by safeguarding his liberty, 
 and by upholding with jealous care the dignity of his 
 character, he raised himself to the height of him who 
 had loaded him with his benefits. It is thus that the 
 nature of their connection was changed, and that 
 instead of remaining his proUqd he became his friend. 
 It must be owned that the poets of the following age 
 did not imitate this example. They were content to 
 overwhelm the great personages who protected them with 
 flattery and meanness. Can one be surprised that the 
 latter, seeing themselves regarded as masters, treated 
 them like servants ? 
 
 V. 
 
 now HORACE LIVED AT HIS COUNTRY HOUSE — HIS 
 JOURNEYS — HE ACCUSTOMS HIMSELF TO REGRET 
 ROME NO MORE — HIS LAST YEARS. 
 
 It is very annoying that Horace, who has described 
 with so niiuiy details the cni})loyment of his days while 
 he remained in lioine, shuuUl not have thought it neces- 
 sary to tell us as clearly how he spent his life in the
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 49 
 
 country. The only thing we know with certainty is 
 that he was very happy there. He for the first time 
 tasted the pleasure of being a proprietor. " I take my 
 meals," said he, " before household gods that are mine 
 own " {Ante Larem proprium vescor)} To have a 
 hearth, domestic gods, to fix his life in a dwelling of 
 which he was the master, was the greatest happiness 
 that could befall a Eoman. To enjoy it, Horace had 
 waited until he was tnore than thirty years of age. "We 
 have seen that his domain, when he took possession of 
 it, was very much neglected, and that the house was 
 falling into ruins. He first had to build and plant. Do 
 not let us pity him ; these cares have their charms. 
 One loves one's house when one has built or repaired 
 it, and the very trouble our land costs us attaches us to 
 it. He came to it as often as he could, and always 
 with pleasure. Everything served him as a pretext to 
 leave Eome. It was too hot there, or too cold; the 
 Saturnalia were approaching — an unbearable time of 
 the year, when all the town was out of doors ; it was the 
 moment to finish a work which Mpecenas had pressingly 
 required. Well, how could anything good be done at 
 Rome, where the noises of the street, the bustle of 
 intercourse, the troublesome peoj)le one has to visit or 
 receive, the bad verses one has to listen to, take up the 
 best part of your time ? ^ So he put Plato with Men- 
 ander into his portmanteau, took with him the work he 
 had begun, promising to do wonders, and started for 
 Tibur. But when he was at home, his good resolutions 
 did not hold out. He had something quite different to 
 
 1 ^'a<., II. 6, 66. ^ Ibid., n. Z, n.
 
 50 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 do than to shut himself up in his study. He liad to 
 chat with his farmer, and superintend his labourers. 
 He went to see them at work, and sometimes lent a 
 hand himself. He dug the spade into the field, took 
 out' the stones, etc., to the great amusement of the 
 neighbours, who marvelled both at his ardour and his 
 clumsiness : 
 
 "Rident vicini glebas et saxa movent em.'' 
 
 In the evening he received at his table a few of the 
 neighbouring proprietors. They were honest folk, who 
 did not speak ill of their neighbours, and who, unlike 
 the fops of Rome, had not for sole topic of conversation 
 the races or the theatre. They handled most serious 
 questions, and their rustic wisdom found ready expres- 
 sion in proverbs and apologues. What pleased Horace 
 above all at these country dinners was that etiquette 
 was laughed at, that everything was simple and frugal, 
 that one did not feel constrained to obey those silly laws 
 which Varro had drawn up, and which had become 
 the code of good company. Nobody thought of electing 
 a king of the feast, to fix for the guests the number of 
 cups that must be drained. Every one ate according to 
 his hunger and drank according to his thirst. " They 
 were," said Horace, " divine repasts " {0 nodes ccncvqiLt 
 Deuvi)} 
 
 Yet he did not always stay at home, however great 
 the pleasure he felt in being there. This steady-going, 
 regular man thought it right from time to time to put 
 a little irregularity into one's life. Does not a Grecian 
 sage — Aristotle, I think — recommend that one excess 
 
 ^ Epis'., I. 11, 39. -Sat., II. 6, 65.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 51 
 
 per month be indulged in, in the interest of health ? It 
 serves, at least, to break the round of habit. Such also 
 was the opinion of Horace. Although the most moderate 
 of men, he found it pleasant to commit an occasional 
 wildness {dulce est desipere in loco)} With age these 
 outbursts had become less frequent, yet he still loved to 
 break the sage uniformity of his existence by some 
 pleasure jaunt. Then he returned to Prseneste, to Baia, or 
 to Tarentum, which he had loved so much in his youth. 
 Once he was unfaithful to these old affections, and 
 chose for the goal of his journey spots that were new 
 to him. The occasion of the change was as follows : 
 Antonius Musa, a Greek physician, had just cured 
 Augustus of a very serious illness, which had been 
 thought must prove fatal, by means of cold water. 
 Hydrotherapeutics at once became fashionable. People 
 Hed the thermal springs, formerly so much sought after, 
 to go off to Clusium, to Gabii, into the mountains, 
 where springs of icy water were found. Horace did like 
 the rest. In the winter of the year 730, instead of 
 going as usual towards Baia, he turned his little steed 
 towards Salerno and Velia. This was the affair of a 
 season. Next year Marullus, the Emperor's son-in-law 
 and heir, falling very ill, Antonius Musa was hastily 
 sent for, and applied his usual remedy. But the 
 remedy no longer healed, and hydrotherapeutics, which 
 had saved Augustus, did not prevent Marullus from 
 dying. They were at once forsaken, and the sick again 
 began following the road to Baia. When Horace 
 started on these extraordinary journeys, he took a 
 
 iCarm.,IV. 12, 28.
 
 52 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 change of diet. " At home," said he, " I can put up with 
 anything ; my Sabine table wine seems to me delicious ; 
 and I regale myself with vegetables from my garden 
 seasoned with a slice of bacon. But when I have once 
 left my house, I become more particular, and beans, 
 beloved though they be of Pythagoras, no longer suffice 
 me."^ So before starting in the direction of Salerno, 
 where he did not often go, he takes the precaution to 
 question one of his friends as to the resources of the 
 country ; whether one can get fish, hares, and venison 
 there, that he may come back home again as fat as a 
 Phoeacian. Above all, he is anxious to know what is 
 drunk in those parts. He wants a generous wine to 
 make him eloquent, and " which will give him strength, 
 and rejuvenate him in the eyes of his young Lucanian 
 sweetheart." We see he pushes precaution a consider- 
 able length. He was not rich enough to possess a house 
 of his own at Baia, Pr?eneste, or Salerno, the spots fre- 
 quented by all the Eoman fashionable world, but he had 
 his wonted lodgings (devc7^soria nota), where he used to 
 put up. When Seneca was at Baia, he lived above a 
 public bath, -and he has furnished us a very amusing 
 account of the sounds of all kinds that troubled his rest. 
 Horace, who liked his ease and wished to be quiet, 
 could not make a very long stay in those noisy places. 
 His whim gratified, he returned as soon as possible to 
 his peaceful house amid the fields, and I can well 
 imagine that those few fatiguing weeks made it seem 
 more pleasant and more sweet to him. 
 
 One cannot read his works carefully without noticing 
 
 1 Epist., I. 15, 17.
 
 hoeace's country house. 53 
 
 that his affection for his country estate goes on con- 
 stantly increasing. At first, when he had passed a few 
 weeks there, the memory of Eome used to re- awaken in 
 his thoughts. Those large towns, wliich we hate when 
 we are forced to }ive in them, have only to be left in 
 order to be regretted ! When Horace's slave, taking an 
 unfair advantage of the liberty of the Saturnalia, tells 
 his master so many unpleasant things, he reproaches 
 him with never being pleased where he is : 
 
 " Eomce rus optas, absentem villicus urbem 
 Tollis ad astra levis ? " ^ 
 
 He was himself very much vexed at his inconstancy, 
 and accused himself " of only loving Eome when he was 
 at Tibur, and only thinking of Tibur from the moment he 
 found himself in Eome." ^ However he cured himself 
 at last of this levity, which annoyed him so much. To 
 this he bears witness in his own favour in the letter 
 addressed to his farmer, where he strives to convince 
 him that one may be happy without having a public • 
 house next door. " As for me," he tells him, " thou 
 knowest that I am self-consistent, and that each time 
 hated business recalls me to Eome I leave this spot 
 with sadness." He doubtless arranged matters so as to 
 live more and more at his country house. He looked 
 forward to a time when it would be possible for him 
 scarcely ever to leave it, and counted upon it to enable 
 him to bear more lightly the weight of his closing 
 years. 
 
 They are heavy, whatever one may do, and age never 
 comes without bringing many griefs. Firstly, the long- 
 
 ^SaL, II. 7, 28. 'EpisL, I. 8, 12.
 
 54 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 lived must needs leave many friends upon the way. 
 Horace lost some to whom he was very tenderly attached 
 — he had the misfortune to survive Virgil and TibuUus 
 ten years. What regrets must he have felt on the death 
 of the great poet of whom he said ',' he knew no soul 
 more bright, and had no better friend ! " ^ The great 
 success of Virgil's posthumous work could only have half 
 consoled him for his loss, for he regretted in him the 
 man as much as the poet. He had also great cause to 
 grieve for Maecenas, whom he so dearly loved. This 
 favourite of the Emperor, this king of fashion, whose 
 fortune all men envied, finished by being very unhappy. 
 It is all very well to take every kind of precaution in 
 order to insure one's happiness — to fly from business, to 
 seek pleasure, to amass wealth, to gather clever men 
 about one, to surround oneself with all the charms of 
 existence ; ^ however one may try to shut the door on 
 them, troubles and sorrows find a way in. The saddest 
 of it all is that Miecenas was first unhappy through his 
 own fault. Somewhat late in life this prudent, wise 
 man had been foolish enough to marry a coquette, and 
 to fall deeply in love with her.^ He had rivals, and 
 among them the Emperor himself, of whom he dared 
 not be jealous. He who had laughed so nmch at others 
 afforded the Eomans a comedy at his own expense. His 
 time was passed in leaving Terentia, and taking her back 
 again. " He has been married more than a hundred 
 times," said Seneca, " although he has liad but one wife." * 
 
 1 Epist. , I. 14, 17. ■ Sat., I. 5, 42. 
 
 '■^ " II avail eu le tort — un homme si prudent et si sage ! — d'epouser 
 sur le tard une coquette et d'en devenir tris amoureux," 
 <Sen., Epist., I. 14, 6.
 
 HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 55 
 
 To these domestic troubles illness was added. His 
 health had never been good, and age and sorrows made 
 it worse. Pliny tells iis that he passed three whole 
 years without being able to sleep.^ Enduring pain 
 badly, he grieved his friends beyond measure by his 
 groans. Horace, with whom he continually conversed 
 about his approaching end, answered him in beautiful 
 verses : " Thou, Ma?cenas, die first ! thou, stay of my 
 fortune, adornment of my life ! The gods will not allow 
 it, and I will not consent. Ah ! if Fate, hastening its 
 blows, should tear from me part of myself in thee, 
 what would betide the other ? What should I hence- 
 forth do, hateful unto myself, and but half of myself 
 surviving ? " ^ 
 
 In the midst of these sorrows, Horace himself felt 
 that he was growing old. Tlie hour when one finds 
 oneself face to face with age is a serious one. Cicero, 
 when approaching it, tried to give himself courage in 
 advance, and being accustomed to console himself for 
 everything by writing, he composed his de Senedute, a 
 charming book in which he tries to deck the closing 
 years of life with certain beauties. He had not to make 
 use of the consolations which he prepared for himself, so 
 we do not know whether he would have found them 
 sufficient when the moment came. That spirit, so 
 young, so full of life, would, I fear, have resigned itself 
 with difficulty to the inevitable decadencies of age. 
 Nor did Horace love old age, and in his Ars Poetica he 
 has drawn a somewhat gloomy picture of it. He had 
 all the more reason to detest it because it came to him 
 
 1 Pliny, Nat. Hist., VII. 51 (52). 2 c^^,„_ ji_ 17^ 3^
 
 56 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 rather early. In one of those passages where he so 
 willingly gives us the description of his person, he tells 
 ns that his hair whitened quickly.' As a climax of mis- 
 fortune he had grown very fat, and being short, his 
 corpulence was very unbecoming to him. Augustus, in 
 a letter, compares him to one of those measures of 
 liquids which are broader than they are high.^ If, in 
 spite of these too evident signs which warned him of 
 his age, he had tried to deceive himself, there was no 
 lack of persons to disabuse him. There was the porter 
 of Netera, who no longer allowed his slave to enter, an 
 affront which Horace was obliged to put up with with- 
 out complaining. "My hair whitening," said he, 
 " warns me not to quarrel. I should not have been so 
 patient in the time of my boiling youth, when Planeus 
 was consul." ^ Then it was Netera herself who declined 
 to come when he summoned her, and again resigning 
 himself with a good enough grace, the poor poet found 
 that, after all, she was right, and that it was natural 
 love should prefer youth to ripened age. 
 
 "Ahi, 
 Quo blandce juvenum te revocant freces.^'* 
 
 Fortunately he was not of a melancholy disposition, 
 like his friends Tibullus and Virgil. He even had 
 opinions on the subject of melancholy, which differ 
 widely from ours. Whereas, since Lamartine, we have 
 assumed the habit of regarding sadness as one of the 
 essential elements of poetry, he thouglit, on the eon- 
 
 1 EpisL, I. 20, 24. 
 
 2 Suet., Vita Eor., p. 47 (Reifcrschoul's edition). 
 » Carm., III. 14, 25. * Ibid., IV. 7.
 
 hokace's country house. 57 
 
 trary, that poetry has the privilege of preventing us 
 from being sad. "A man protected by the Muses," 
 said he, " flings cares and sorrows to the winds to bear 
 away." ^ His philosophy had taught him not to revolt 
 against inevitable ills. However painful they be, one 
 makes them lighter by bearing them.^ So he accepted 
 old age because it cannot be eluded, and because no 
 means have yet been found of living long without grow- 
 ing old. Death itself did not frighten him. He was 
 not of those who reconcile themselves to it as well as 
 they can by never thinking about it. On the contrary, 
 he counsels us to have it always in mind. " Think that 
 the day which lights you is the last you have to live. 
 The morrow will have more charm for you if you did 
 not hope to see it " : 
 
 " Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum ; 
 Grata superveniet quce non sperabitur hora." - 
 
 This is not, as might be supposed, one of those 
 bravadoes of the timid, who shout before Death in order 
 to deaden the sound of his footsteps. Horace was never 
 more calm, more energetic, more master of his mind and 
 of his soul, than in the works of his ripe age. The last 
 lines of his that remain to us are the firmest and most 
 serene he ever wrote. 
 
 Then, more than ever, must he have loved the little 
 Sabine valley. When we visit these beautiful tranquil 
 spots, we tell ourselves that they appear made to shelter 
 the declining years of a sage. It seems as if with old 
 servants, a few faithful friends, and a stock of well- 
 
 1 Carm., I. 26, 1. 
 
 2 Ibid., I. 24, 19.
 
 58 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 chosen books, the time must pass there without sadness. 
 But I must stop. Since Horace has not taken us into 
 his confidence respecting' his last years, and nobody 
 after him has told us of them, we are reduced to form 
 conjectures, and we should put as few of them as 
 possible into the life of a man who loved truth so well.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 
 
 There is a famous saying of Tacitus, that imagination 
 transfigures all that is unknown to us and makes it 
 appear marvellous : " Omne ignotum pro magnifico est." ^ 
 Ovid, on the contrary, holds that we cannot desire the 
 unknown : " Ignoti nulla cupido ; " ^ and although they 
 seem to contradict each other, I think they are both 
 right. The unknown produces contrary effects upon 
 us, according to the diversity of our natures ; some it 
 attracts, others it repels. We see this well by what 
 happens in the case of the Etruscans. Many of the 
 learned find a sort of provoking charm in the very 
 obscurity which shrouds the origin of this people, in 
 the little that is known of its history, in the hitherto 
 existing impossibility of understanding its language. 
 These are enigmas they fain would solve, and so pas- 
 sionate is their desire, that failure stimulates instead of 
 disheartening them. The less they attain to knowledge, 
 the more they seek to know. Others resign themselves 
 to ignorance much more easily. They even suspect 
 that in this civilization which so obstinately refuses to 
 
 1 Agric, 30. 2 ^rs a?/i., III. 397.
 
 60 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 be guessed there was nothing worth knowing. So they 
 are inexhaustible in their sarcasms at the foolish curi- 
 osity of these poor pundits who delight to wander in 
 the dark, and lose their trouble and their time in trying 
 to solve the insolvable.^ 
 
 I must own myself to be on the side of the curious. 
 Although their obstinacy has not always been fortunate, 
 I do not find it ridiculous. Eeluctance to remain 
 ignorant of the past history of a race which held an 
 important place among ancient nations is a thing I 
 cannot understand. When I see in a museum the 
 beautiful works which the Etruscans have left us, I 
 am seized by an ardent desire to know who made 
 them. I cannot pass unmoved those great statues of 
 stone or terra-cotta lying stretched on their sarcophagi, 
 leaning upon their elbows, and seeming to look at the 
 visitors. They are so true, so living, that I always 
 want to question them about their history, and ask 
 them for their secret. 
 
 If this secret has been so well kept, if it is so difficult 
 to know this strange, mysterious people, it is not because, 
 like so many others, it has disappeared entirely. There 
 are few, indeed, of whom so many relics remain. The 
 amount of things that have been taken from their cities 
 of the dead during the last three centuries is incredible. 
 The museums of the entire world are full of their spoils; 
 
 ^ Momnisen is one of these scofTurs, and the most pitiless. At 
 the beginning of his Roman History lie rallies people who pile up 
 hypotheses about the Etruscans and their origin. "Archaeologists," 
 he says, "have a mania for fondly seeking to know what cannot be 
 known, and isn't worth knowing." Then he compares them to those 
 erudite fools of antiquity whom Tiberius jeeringly asked " Who was 
 Hecuba's mother ? "
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT COENETO. 61 
 
 they have left us precious objects of every kind, and 
 the harvest is far from being gathered. The Louvre 
 already possesses many painted vases, due to the 
 liberalities of Caylus, Forbin, and other enlightened 
 amateurs, and to the acquisition of the collections of 
 MM, Durand and Fochon ; and it might have been con- 
 sidered one of the museums richest in Etruscan antiqui- 
 ties even before 1862, when, through the intermediary 
 of M. Leon Eenier, the State acquired the Campana col- 
 lection, which more than doubled its riches. It contained 
 vases, pictures, jewels of the greatest value, together 
 with a marvellous gathering of terra-cottas, mostly 
 from Campania and Etruria, Three large rooms were 
 filled with what had been found in the tombs of ancient 
 Coere alone. So an idea of this little-known civilization 
 may be found without leaving Paris, and by simply 
 visiting the galleries of the Louvre. It is a journey 
 within the reach of all, and from which all may derive 
 great profit. 
 
 Yet the best way to study the Etruscans is to go and 
 see them at home. The thousand objects we view with 
 curiosity in the cases of a museum are much more curious 
 still, and teach us more, when found in their natural 
 place. One knows their purpose, and better understands 
 their character. Among Etruscan cities, few have kept 
 so many mementoes of their glorious past as Corneto, 
 the ancient Tarquinii. It is thither we must go in 
 order to study ancient Etruria on the spot. Not only 
 does this town possess a larger number of ancient 
 monuments than the rest, but we have the advantage 
 here of their having been studied by distinguished 
 savants, and, above all, by Dr Helbig, one of the
 
 62 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 directors of the Arclueological lustitution at Eome, 
 who has already assisted us to a knowledge of the 
 paintings at Pompeii.^ I cannot perhaps do better 
 than use his labours, and, following in his footsteps, 
 visit with him the tombs of Corneto. 
 
 HOW TARQUINII DISAPPEARED — CORNETO — RELICS OF THE 
 MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE AT CORNETO — 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS — GENERAL ASPECT. 
 
 Travelling over maritime Etruria used to be trouble- 
 some work ; and to risk oneself in these unhealthy, 
 sparsely - populated regions presupposed considerable 
 curiosity and no small amount of courage. To-day 
 nothing is easier. A very interesting railway skirts 
 the shores of the Mediterranean from Genoa to Palo, 
 and being the shortest route from Turin to Eome, is 
 very much used. One does not think of stopping at 
 the intermediate stations, it is true, nor does what one 
 sees of the Tuscan Maremma in this rapid Hight make 
 one wish to visit it more nearly. Yet it is wrong 
 to do so ; and a traveller stopping at Corneto, and 
 remaining there at least an entire day, would not have 
 reason to complain that the time was lost. 
 
 Corneto is situated between Orbetelli and Civita 
 Vecchia. It is now a little town of some few thousand 
 inhabitants, perched upon a verdant hill, and viewed 
 
 ' See Promenades Archiologiqxtes, p. 318 and following. The works 
 of Dr Helbig on the paintings at Corneto are contained in the Annales 
 de Vlnstitut de Corrcspondaiice Archeologique.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 63 
 
 from below, strikes one by the number of its turrets. 
 It is rather fatiguing work to get there, for the ascent of 
 the hill-side is a roucjli one, but once on the summit, 
 the view enjoyed repays us for our pains. Before us is 
 the sea, with Monte Argcntaro seeming from a distance 
 to fling itself into the waves. Turning towards the 
 land side, we see a little river, la Marta, plunging into 
 the valley through the trees. Facing us, a hill rises 
 opposite to that on which Corneto is built. They 
 are only separated by a little smiling, fertile plain ; and 
 a few kilometres further on they approach each other, 
 and end by joining, so as to form a kind of low 
 semicircle. Corneto occupies the extremity of the one 
 nearest to the sea ; Tarquinii was built on the other, 
 just opposite to where Corneto now stands. 
 
 Tarquinii was one of the largest and most important 
 cities of Etruria. Its wall was eight kilometres round. 
 There, it is said, in the first year of Eome, the Corin- 
 thian Demaratus came to settle, bringing with him all 
 his riches, together with his family and his clients, 
 some of whom were distinguished Grecian artists. 
 When war broke out between Etruria and the Romans, 
 Tarquinii chiefly bore the brunt of it. Its inhabitants 
 defended their independence bravely, and Eome could 
 only complete its subjection after a simultaneous 
 massacre of all its aristocracy. In losing its liberty, it 
 necessarily lost much of its importance. Yet Cicero 
 still calls it " a very flourishing city." ^ How came it 
 to disappear entirely later on, and to spring up again 
 in another place and under a different name ? We 
 
 i LcRcp., II. 18.
 
 64 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 know but very imperfectly, but vicissitudes of this 
 kind seem to have been inherent to the destinies of 
 Etruscan cities. They had very checkered fortunes, 
 and it was the fate of many to die and come to life 
 again. This is explained, if one considers the sur- 
 rounding country. It is at once attractive and terrible, 
 fertile and plague-stricken. It is the Maremma — 
 
 " Dilettevole molto e 1)000 sana," 
 
 as a poet of the fourteenth century says. It has not 
 the desolate look of the Koman Campagna, although as 
 fearful to live in. In the plains vegetation is vigorous, 
 and the hills are covered with cork oaks, mastic trees, 
 and carobs, " How often," says M. Noel des Vergers, 
 " while seeking under the luxuriant vegetation of the 
 forests for traces of the mysterious nation that used to 
 people these deserts, and finding so many proofs of its 
 sojourn, have I begun to doubt that in these fragrant 
 woods, these pasturages, this air, so soft, so mild, could 
 lurk disease and death. To convince me there needed 
 chance meetings with some of the rare inhabitants, 
 whose shrunken features, dull eyes, yellow hue, and 
 bulging stomach all speak of suffering better than the 
 most eloquent narration could do."^ To render the 
 country habitable it was necessary to make it healthy, 
 and this the Etruscans did. That they drained the 
 marshes and gave a better flow to the rivers is beyond 
 a doubt. Pliny the Elder admired the hydraulic works 
 they had carried out in the valley of the Po while they 
 were its masters ; they must have done still more for 
 the very country which was their cradle and the centre 
 
 ^ Noel des Vergers, VEtrurie et les Eirusques, I. p. 2.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT COENETO. 65 
 
 of their domination. We may suppose that they dug 
 there some of those great drains tliat are met with 
 everywhere in the neighbourhood of Eome, and which, 
 to use the expression of a sagacious observer, make all 
 the Tiber basin and the slopes of the Alban Mount look 
 like a gigantic warren.^ But these works are, by their 
 very nature, delicate and fragile. Nature can only be 
 subdued at the cost of an endless struggle. If we relax 
 a moment, she reassumes all her empire. A few years 
 of negligence suffice to lose the fruits of many years of 
 effort — the canals get choked, the ponds fill, and 
 miasmas begin to infect the air again. In the 
 eighteenth century the descendants of the great 
 Medici having ceased to encourage the works under- 
 taken by their ancestors for the purpose of rendering 
 the environs of Lake Castiglione more healthy, and 
 allowed the Tosso di Navigazione which joined this lake 
 to a neighbouring river to become obstructed, it was 
 remarked that in a few years the population of Grossetto 
 fell from 3,000 souls to 700, and that the adjacent Cam- 
 pagna, instead of sowing 1,300 measures of corn every 
 year as formerly, only sowed 300. The above example 
 shows us how quickly things degenerate in this country, 
 
 ^ These small tunneLs, generally 1 m. 50 high, and sometimes 
 several kilometres in extent, have long been known. They are so 
 numerous in the Eoman Caropagna that it was difficult not to notice 
 them ; hut their purjiose was not suspected. It is now generally 
 agreed that they formed a kind of drainage destined to dry the soil 
 and fight the malaria. On this subject the monks of M. Thomasi 
 Crudeli, director of the Anatomical and Physiological Institution of 
 Rome, may be consulted, and an article of M. de la Blanchere in the 
 Melanges d' archeologic et d'hisloirc (Vol. II.) published by the Ecole 
 FraD9aise. 
 
 £
 
 66 THE COUXTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 and also explains how the depopulation and ruin of the 
 Etruscan cities proceeded so rapidly, and why, in some 
 cases, it was so complete. Their decadence began 
 directly after their defeat by the Eomans. Towards 
 the end of the Eepublic several of them were already 
 desolate ; the malaria, more feebly combated, had 
 resumed its power. Virgil, speaking of Graviscise, the 
 port of Tarquinii, which must have been near the 
 mouth of the Marta, calls it an unhealthy place. 
 Surely it could not have been so when the ships of 
 Greece and Carthage brought the merchandise of their 
 countries to these coasts. It had become so since the 
 Etruscans, having lost their activity with their inde- 
 pendence, no longer fought the terrible scourge with the 
 same energy. But the evil could be repaired. It was 
 possible, by an increase of efibrt, to render these lands 
 habitable again ; and as they are fertile and smiling, 
 and attract the cultivator by their wealth, he returns 
 courageously, and sets to work again as soon as the 
 political situation improves, and he can hope to enjoy 
 the fruits of his labour in peace. M. Noiil des Vergers 
 bids us remark that Etruria, which seemed exhausted 
 towards the end of the Eoman Eepublic, under the 
 Empire all at once revives. The Campagna repeoples, 
 and the towns rise again. Propertius tells us that in 
 his time, at the beginning of the reign of Augustus, the 
 shepherd led his flocks over the ruins of Veil. Under 
 the successors of Augustus, Veii once more became an 
 important city, whose existence is revealed to us by 
 curious inscriptions. Strabo mentions Fidense among 
 those ancient cities of Etruria destroyed by war, and 
 become simple private properties. In the time of
 
 THE ETKUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 6Y 
 
 Tiberius Fidente is once more an important city, giving 
 games to which all its neighbours flock ; and Tacitus 
 relates that at one of these festivals more than 50,000 
 persons were killed or injured by the fall of an amphi- 
 theatre. There, indeed, we have very rapid resurrec- 
 tions. But some time after, when came the Empire's 
 evil days, internal revolutions, and the disasters of 
 invasion, the maritime coast of Etruria again became 
 depopulated. The Gaul, Eutilius Namatianus, who 
 passed along these shores when returning home from 
 Eome, found them desolate. On his road he only saw the 
 Campagna depopulated by the fever, and deserted towns. 
 " Let not man complain of death," said he, surveying 
 ancient Populonia, whose monuments lay strewn upon 
 the ground ; " here are examples which teach us that 
 cities, too, may die." ^ 
 
 It is then that Tarquinii, in consequence of disasters 
 of which we know but little, was abandoned by its 
 inhabitants. To-day, vegetation has covered again 
 the little that remains of the old city. From afar no 
 vestige of it is seen. We must go about the hill 
 where it was built, and carefully remove the grass, in 
 order to discover the substructures of a few walls, or 
 some fallen stones. How came the deserted city to 
 remove to the other side of the plain ? What reasons 
 could it have for settling on the neighbouring hills ? 
 We do not know ; but in this new site it shed a certain 
 lustre during the Middle Ages. At Corneto some fine 
 monuments of that epoch are shown, especially the 
 church of Santa Maria in Castello, which has not been 
 
 ^ Itiiicr., I. 413.
 
 68 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 spoiled by clumsy restoration — a somewhat rare case 
 in Italy. Being no longer used as a place of worship, it 
 escapes the unenlightened zeal of the faithful and the 
 bad taste of village priests, and remains as it was when 
 consecrated in the twelfth century, with a few injuries 
 of time that do not disfigure it. It preserves intact its 
 cihorium ornamented with light* columns ; its marble 
 ambo, just like that of St Clement's at Eome ; and 
 on the broken slabs of the old tombs which have served 
 to mend its pavement, we read inscriptions reaching 
 back to the first centuries of Christianity. At the 
 Eenaissance, Corneto still had a certain importance. A 
 family rich and friendly to the Arts, of which there 
 were so many at that time — the Vitelleschi — had a 
 magnificent palace built there on the model of those at 
 Florence, and equal to them in beauty and grandeur. 
 As with them, the lower part is like a fortress, while 
 in the upper part elegance holds sway ; so that strength 
 and grace commingle in the most unexpected manner. 
 Our surprise is great in going over Corneto to find, in 
 a little town isolated on a rock in the midst of a desert, 
 a church like St Clement's, and a palace recalling 
 by its proportions and its architecture the most beauti- 
 ful of Florence. But we are in Italy, where surprises 
 of this sort are not uncommon. Elsewhere Art seems 
 to have reserved itself for towns ; but in this privileged 
 country it has grown with such vigour, has flowed in 
 such abundance, that it sometimes overflowed into the 
 very villages. 
 
 But one does not come to Corneto in order to study 
 the Middle Ages of the Eenaissance. They are found 
 represented elsewhere by monuments more beautiful and
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT OORNETO. 69 
 
 more numerous yet. Here we are only looking for the 
 Etruscans. So we must be content with a rapid glance 
 at Santa Maria in Castello and the Vitelleschi palace, 
 and hasten to see what remains of this lost people of 
 ancient times. 
 
 Our expectation will not be deceived, and we shall 
 be able to satisfy ourselves fully. Corneto gives a good 
 example to other Italian towns by the care she takes of 
 her antiquities. She is very proud of her past, and not 
 only has she added the old name of Tarquinii to her 
 own {Corneto Tarquinia) — a gratification of her vanity 
 which cost her nothing — but she incurs great outlay in 
 order to house her riches well and to increase them. 
 These expenses are borne by the town and by a local 
 Society, TUniversita Agraria, which has generously 
 undertaken to bear half the burden. M. Luigi Dasti, 
 the mayor, is a man of refinement, who loves his little 
 town very much, and he sustains everybody's zeal. 
 Thanks to him, it has been possible to carry on the 
 excavations for the last ten years, although the Govern- 
 ment has encouraged them but little. Fresh tombs 
 have been discovered, others unearthed anew, and a 
 museum has been founded destined soon to become one 
 of the richest in Italy. This museum and these tombs 
 are precisely what attract the stranger to Corneto. 
 
 He has not far to go to see the tombs ; for the very 
 hill on which Corneto stands was the Necropolis of 
 Tarquinii. From their windows the inhabitants of the 
 great city could see their family sepulchres rise one 
 above another opposite to them. The spectacle of 
 death did not then seem painful to them — a proof that 
 they were not like their descendants, the Tuscans of
 
 70 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to-day, who carefully hide their funerals, celebrate 
 them at night, and carry off their dead at racing speed, 
 as if to get rid of them as soon as possible. Tarquinii 
 having existed during ten centuries, the hill wliich 
 served it as a cemetery is pierced with tombs. Thou- 
 sands have been discovered and there remain many 
 more than have been found. Naturally, the simple 
 sepulchres are the commonest; but there are also 
 handsome ones that belonged to great families. Twenty- 
 eight are known to-day ornamented with nmral 
 paintings, and it is with them we shall chiefly have 
 to do. 
 
 All are cut in the rock, at depths varying from two 
 to twelve metres ; and there must formerly have been 
 some sign above the soil to indicate the existence of 
 the tomb within. This was doubtless a more or less 
 massy mound of turf, in one of whose sides was the 
 door giving access to the vault. In the midst of the 
 desolate plain of Vulei, in the plague-struck wilderness 
 by which the great city has been replaced, rises a 
 tumulus, fifteen mi^tres high and two hundred metres in 
 circumference. It is called in the neighbourhood "la 
 Cucumella." It is a mass of accumulated earth covering 
 two domes of masonry. Eound towers, of which 
 traces are still seen, rose above the monument. They 
 were surmounted by symbolic animals, winged sphinxes, 
 lions crouching or standing, destined to frighten away 
 evil spirits. Although it has not yet been possible to 
 pierce the stone arched roof, and the Cucumella obstin- 
 ately keeps its secret, it may be affirmed to have been 
 the top of a tomb. There is no longer anything of the 
 kind at Corneto. The tumuli have all disappeared, and
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 71 
 
 only the underground part, the sepulchres, have been 
 preserved. These subterranean tombs are of very 
 unequal size. The greater number consist of a square 
 chamber three or four metres in measurement. But 
 some of them contain several rooms, while others are so 
 vast that it has been necessary to have pillars to support 
 the roof. The dead repose in large sarcophagi of stone 
 or terra-cotta. When they have been burnt, their 
 ashes are placed in urns of varied form. The same 
 sepulchre sometimes contains both urns and sarcophagi, 
 showing that both modes of burial were practised at the 
 same epoch. In some ancient tombs, the dead, clad in 
 his finest apparel and decked with his arms, lay 
 stretched upon a bed of state. Those who had the 
 good fortune to penetrate first, when all was still intact, 
 have described to us the emotion with which they were 
 seized on beholding these warriors in the very attitude in 
 which they were left when the vault was walled up, more 
 than twenty centuries ago. This sight generally dis- 
 appears in a few minutes. The air, on penetrating 
 these funeral chambers which had been so loug closed, 
 rapidly decomposed the bodies, reducing them to dust 
 before the eyes of the visitors. " 'Twas an evocation of 
 the past that had not even the duration of a dream." 
 Besides the arms, the beds, and the sarcophagi, the tombs 
 contained articles of toilet, mirrors, weapons, and, above 
 all, vases. Almost all these movables have disappeared ; 
 they were too tempting to robbers. Even in ancient 
 times, despite the respect professed for the dead, the 
 temptation to pillage old tombs was irresistible. 
 Theodoric, judging it better to authorise what he could 
 not prevent, allowed anybody to appropriate the gold
 
 72 THE COUXTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 found in them, when they no longer had a lawful 
 owner {aurunt scpulchris juste detrahetur, uhi dominus 
 non hahetur)} The moderns have continued to profit 
 by the permission, and so well that nothing now 
 remains which could be carried off — that is to say, the 
 mural paintings. 
 
 I cannot think of taking the reader successively 
 through all the tombs of Corneto, and describing tliem 
 one after the other. It would be a tiresome enumeration, 
 for which a good guide may be substituted with advan- 
 tage.- I prefer to suppose the visit paid. We have 
 gone through the most important tombs by the wan 
 light of the cerini; the custode has shown the paintings 
 that decorate them ; and we have looked with interest 
 upon all these scenes, some half destroyed by damp, 
 others preserving after so many centuries an extra- 
 ordinary brilliancy and freshness. Having finished our 
 round, let us try to sum up the impressions left and 
 the reflections suggested by it. Let us ask ourselves 
 what it can teach us of the people who built these 
 tombs, and whether it be possible to draw from it as to 
 their manner of living, their character, and their 
 beliefs. 
 
 ^ Cassiodorus, Variar., IV. 14. 
 
 ^ M. L. Dasti, tlie Mayor of Corneto of whom I have just spoken, 
 has published two pamphlets, entitled Tombc Etruclie di pinte, and 
 Musco elruseo Tarquenicse, which will be of great use to visitors of 
 these tombs. I may add that this essay has been translated into 
 Italian, and is sold at Corneto as a kind of guide for strangers. I 
 recall this fact merely as a testimony to the exactness of the descrip- 
 tions.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 73 
 
 II. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF SEPULTURE AMONG THE ETRUSCANS — THE 
 PAINTINGS IN THE TOMBS — FEW SCENES OF SADNESS 
 ARE FOUND AMONG THEM — HOW IT IS THEY SO OFTEN 
 REPRESENT BANQUETS AND GAMES — THE EXACTNESS 
 OF THESE PAINTINGS — THE COSTUME OF THE PERSON- 
 AGES IS THAT OF ANCIENT ROMANS — THE SMALL 
 NUMBER REPRESENTING MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS, 
 AND THE CONCLUSION TO BE DRAWN FROM THIS 
 CIRCUMSTANCE — THE ETRUSCANS ACCEPT THE FABLES 
 OF GREECE — TOMB A DEL' ORCO — WHAT HAPPENS 
 TO THESE FABLES AMONG THE ETRUSCANS — 
 CHARUN. 
 
 What first strikes us is the importance attached to 
 sepulture. All ancient nations doubtless gave the 
 matter great weight, but still they have left us palaces, 
 temples, and theatres as well as funeral monuments ; 
 of the Etruscans we have nothing but tombs. They 
 evidently, then, built them with more care than all the 
 rest, and their minds must therefore have been much 
 taken up with death. But what idea had they of it ? 
 One would think that this must be an easy thing to 
 find out, and that in order to do so we need only look 
 at the pictures which decorate the tombs. Unfor- 
 tunately, these paintings are not all of the same epoch, 
 and many represent very different states of mind. 
 Under the influence of their neighbours, the Etruscans 
 have more than once changed their opinions. These 
 variations must be taken into account, in order that we 
 may not draw too general opinions from a single
 
 74 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 picture, or attribute to one period what belonged to 
 another. Nor let us forget that ancient religions had 
 no precise dogmas, since it is truth we shall always 
 have before our eyes when studying Antiquity. The 
 Etruscans doubtless possessed a great number of sacred 
 books ; but although we have lost them, we can be sure 
 that none of them contained a religious teaching, in the 
 sense we attach to the word. There, as elsewhere, the 
 priests only busied themselves with regulating the 
 practices of religion, all the rest being left to the free 
 interpretation of the faithful. Even on the question 
 which to us seems the most important of all — about 
 death and what follows it, about hell and about Elysium — 
 everybody thought merely what he chose. Hence the 
 artists of the tombs of Corneto were not, like those of 
 the Catacombs, fettered by fixed beliefs, and rigorously 
 bound to conform to them. They could abandon them- 
 selves more to their caprices. To press too far the 
 meaning of the scenes they portray ; to attribute 
 formal intention to the least details of their pictures, as 
 has been sometimes done, and infer a certain and 
 general doctrine from what was sometimes only an 
 individual fancy, would be to risk self-deception. 
 
 With these reserves, there are a certain number of 
 observations which may be risked without fear, being 
 based upon too many proofs to be contradicted. We 
 shall, for example, remark that, at least in the earlier 
 times, death does not seem to inspire the Etruscan 
 artists with very sad thoughts. Mournful subjects 
 which seem in place on the walls of a tomb are very 
 rare at Corneto. In the Tomba del Morto we are shown 
 an old man stretched on a magnificent bed. He has
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 75 
 
 ♦just died. Before him a young woman with dishevelled 
 hair, probably his daughter, seems to be fastening or 
 pulling down over her face the cap which covers her 
 head. At the ends of the bed two men raise their 
 hands in an attitude of the most poignant sorrow. This 
 scene is like the one painted in the Tomba del Morente, 
 where a whole family is seen plunged in grief near a 
 dying man. But these, I repeat, are exceptions. The 
 artist, in general, has been lavish in cheerful pictures. 
 One would think his desire had been only to paint, in 
 this abode of death, that which gives life a value. 
 Above all, banquets are frequently represented, and 
 there is scarcely a tomb which does not contain one. 
 The guests recline on sumptuous couches, and hold 
 large goblets in their hands ; their women are placed 
 beside them ; everything breathes joy ; wreathes of 
 flowers hang from the roof, the tables are served, and 
 we can distinguish the forms of the dishes which cover 
 it, and count their number. By the tables stand slaves 
 bearing amphorae, and ready to pour out wine for the 
 guests, while by their side musicians play the double 
 flute or the cithern. We must not be surprised to see 
 musicians figure so often in the paintings of Corneto, 
 for music held a great place in the life of the Etruscans. 
 Not only did they never celebrate a religious ceremony 
 or a public festival without it, but it may be said to 
 have accompanied all their actions. An historian cited 
 by Athenseus declares that they kneaded their bread 
 and flogged their slaves to the sound of the flute. A 
 love of music naturally brings with it that of dancing, 
 so at Corneto there are dancers in abundance. They 
 are usually represented in violent attitudes, their hair
 
 76 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 dishevelled and their heads thrown back, as the Greeks"- 
 love to paint the Bacchantes. We also very frequently 
 see hunting scenes. In these gorges of the Appenines 
 the chase must always have been a favourite amuse- 
 ment. The hunter is on foot or mounted. He pursues 
 birds with the sling, and attacks the boar with the spear, 
 while his servants carry upon their shoulders the beasts 
 he has slain. Another subject the artists of the country 
 delight to represent are the games, and especially horse 
 and chariot racing. In the Tomba delle Bighe, the 
 charioteers, clad in scarlet tunics, with reins in hand 
 and bodies inclined, are about to dispute the prize. 
 The riders are seated on one horse and hold another by 
 the bridle, doubtless ready to spring from one to the 
 other. Athletes and pugilists keep the crowd amused 
 during the intervals of the races. Meanwhile the 
 spectators throng into a kind of stand very like 
 our own. We see them, men and women, dressed in 
 their holiday clothes, and intent upon the show. Some 
 persons who could not find any other place — slaves, per- 
 haps — have crept beneath the tribunes, and look on from 
 there, in company with some domestic animals. The 
 scene has an incredible character of reality. Sometimes 
 it is actors, pautomimists, or acrobats who are charged 
 to amuse the public, and who do it with a will, making 
 all kinds of contortions, climbing one upon the other, 
 and walking upon their heads. Their costumes are at 
 times rather strange. One of them wears a pointed 
 cap with coloured stripes, and a little tuft of red wool 
 at the end, just like that put by the Italians on their 
 Punchinellos. So the tomb where it was found is 
 called " la Tomba del Pulcinella."
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 77 
 
 What was the real meaning of these paintings ? Why- 
 does the artist usually prefer them to others ? And 
 what can there be in them particularly suitable to a 
 tomb ? It is often said in explanation that they repre- 
 sent feasts given in honour of the dead, and at first 
 sight this solution looks very probable. We know, 
 indeed, what a great place festivities hold in the funeral 
 rites of Eonie. The ninth day after the funeral the 
 family meets to dine round about the tomb. This 
 repast is called the cc7ia novemdialis ; it is, strictly 
 speaking, the octave of the dead. A year afterwards, and 
 on the succeeding anniversaries, the repast is renewed, 
 and reunites the relatives and all who still remember 
 the friend who has passed away. So far-sighted people 
 who wish their memory to be commemorated as long 
 as possible are careful to leave by will funds to cover 
 the expense of the feast. Christianity found these 
 customs so enrooted that at first it did not dare to de- 
 stroy them, and it was usual to come and eat and drink 
 at the tombs of the martyrs on their anniversaries down 
 to the time of St Ambrose. As for the gains, they 
 were not, as one might be tempted to think, a simple 
 gratification of vanity — a manner, like any other, of 
 glorifying a man of importance who had died. They had 
 a religious meaning of the deepest gravity. A Christian 
 who assists at a sacrifice for the dead thinks that he is 
 working by his prayers to ensure them eternal bliss, 
 which is certainly to render them a great service ; but 
 a pagan who celebrated games in honour of one of his 
 relations, actually helped him to become a god, which is 
 a very great deal more. Such was the importance of 
 worship in those old religions that not only could there
 
 •78 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 be no gods without worshippers, but the worshipper is 
 even suspected of contributing to the divinity of him he 
 prays to.^ Young races readily believe that the man 
 who dies throws off the conditions of humanity and 
 becomes a superior being. So then he is nearly a god 
 (dii manes), and his divinity is completed, and the same 
 honours are rendered to him that are assigned to the 
 immortals. It is easy to understand that the games 
 having this importance, it has been sought to preserve 
 their memory, and that their image has been painted in 
 the tomb of him who was honoured by them. It was a 
 way of affirming his apotheosis. 
 
 In our days a new explanation has been imagined. 
 These feasts, these games, we are told, are not, as it has 
 been thought, a representation of honours rendered 
 to the deceased, but an image of the felicity he enjoys 
 in the other world. The scene had been laid on earth ; 
 in order to understand it, it must be removed to the sky. 
 Among us, M. Eavaisson has maintained this opinion 
 with great force. Apropos of a bas-relief recently dis- 
 covered at Athens, where a young woman is seen hold- 
 ing out her hand to some old men, he bids us remark 
 that we possess many such representations, and that 
 hitlierto antiquarians, believing they discerned an air of 
 sadness on the faces of the personages, have supposed 
 here scenes of adieu or separation. M. Eavaisson 
 remarks that in the monument he is studying, the old 
 men and the young woman, far from parting, are walk- 
 ing towards each other ; and since Hermes, the god con- 
 
 1 Tins is what Statius seems to me very precisely to express in his 
 Thchaid. He represents a nymph who, by dint of adoring an oak, 
 has rendered it a sort ot divine power {numcnquc colendo fcccrat).
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 79 
 
 ductor of souls, figures beside the woman, as if taking 
 her to her relations he thinks that the place where 
 they are is the abode of happy spirits. Then extending 
 to all monuments of this kind the explanation he has 
 given of the one at Athens, he proposes to call them in 
 future, not " scenes of adieu," but " scenes of re- 
 union." 1 He believes them to be a fresh affirmation of 
 the belief of the ancients in the persistence of life, a 
 satisfaction given to that energetic hope which refuses 
 to believe in eternal separation. He seizes the occasion 
 to combat the doctrine of Lobeck, who holds that the 
 Greeks, satisfied with the present life, long remain 
 strangers to all serious concern respecting a life to 
 come, and that they only began to grow anxious about 
 it when political agitation came to trouble the serenity 
 of their consciences and open them to religious terrors. 
 To archaeologists of this school, who decline to see in 
 any monument allusions to what follows death, M. 
 Eavaisson opposes the interpretation which he has just 
 given of the so-called "scenes of adieu." To it he 
 adds a new way of understanding the supposed funeral 
 repasts. They are for him and many others'^ an expres- 
 sion of the divine condition of the soul when it has left 
 
 ^ M. Ravaisson's note was published In the Gazette archeologique of 
 1875. His conclusions can evidently not apply to all bas-reliefs with- 
 out exception, and there are some where it is very difficult to see 
 " scenes of reunion." Those spoken of by M. Bninn in the Aimalcs dc 
 correspondance archeologique (1859, p. 325, ci seq.), in which, beside the 
 two spouses who press each other's hands, demons await death in 
 order to proceed towards an open door, are indeed veritable " scenes of 
 adieu." 
 
 * This opinion has been especially championed in Germany by 
 MM. Ambrosch and Stephani.
 
 80 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the body, and a manner of showing the happiness it 
 will enjoy after death. So he would have them called 
 "Elysian banquets." To the reasons collected by M. 
 Eavaisson in support of his opinion, Dr Helbig adds 
 another, which is not without importance. He has 
 remarked that in the Tomba del Oreo, to be noticed 
 further on, the artist has traced round the scenes where 
 the gods appear a line of dark blue, quite resembling 
 the nimbus by painters of the Middle Ages to dis- 
 tinguish the heads of the saints for the veneration of 
 the faithful. Well, this tomb, like almost all others 
 contains a banqueting scene, and this banquet is sur- 
 rounded by the same nimbus, from which it may be con- 
 cluded that the guests are also inhabitants of heaven. 
 
 Whatever be the force of these arguments, I fear 
 that those who visit the frescoes at Corneto will 
 retain some doubts. They have a character so frankly 
 terrestrial ; they reproduce with so much truth the 
 actions of ordinary life, that one has great difficulty to 
 conceive that the artist has thought of painting gods 
 and transporting into Elysium. In the Tomba del Vecchio 
 an old man, whose white beard contrasts strongly with 
 his swarthy hue, reclines near a young woman, 
 familiarly holding her by the chin. An air of sensual 
 satisfaction is spread over his features, and the woman 
 herself acquiesces willingly enough in his caresses. 
 While looking at them it costs us a violent effort to 
 persuade ourselves that we are no longer upon earth. 
 For the hunts, the games, and the dances, the difficulty 
 is still greater. It would doubtless be very natural to 
 see in them an image of the pleasures in which the 
 blessed indulge in the world beyond the tomb. " Some
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 81 
 
 of them," says Virgil, " exercise their limbs in the games 
 of the palestra, and wrestle with each other on the 
 yellow sand ; others beat the ground in cadence. The 
 taste they had in life for chariots and horses does not 
 quit them after they have ceased to live." ^ But how- 
 ever inclined one may be to regard these frescoes as 
 the picture of a kind of pagan paradise, one lights at 
 every instant upon details that bring one back to earth 
 again. In the Tomba del Cacciatore, one of the per- 
 sonages who pursues birds with a sling is so carried 
 away by his ardour that he falls from a high rock 
 into the sea. That is an accident to which one 
 would think immortals could not be exposed. It is all 
 very well to say that in those remote times the future 
 life was thought to be exactly like the present one ; it 
 is difficult to admit that the dead could have run a risk 
 of killing themselves. 
 
 Perhaps it is more simple and probable to suppose 
 that it is not merely a question either of Tartarus or of 
 Elysium here, but of future life as all primitive races 
 picture it to themselves. It is known that this second 
 existence appeared to them to be a dark sequel to the 
 first, a twilight after the day. Man continues to live in 
 the tomb, but with lessened wants, and passions grown 
 more feeble. In order that he may not perceive too 
 great a change, they build his sepulchre on the model of 
 his house. There are tombs at Corneto arranged quite 
 like ordinary habitations. The one called the Tomba 
 degli Scudi is composed of four rooms; one being placed 
 
 ^ yEn., VI. 642. I may add that those personages who dance or 
 ride seem indeed to be quite alive, and that the artist has sometimes 
 written their names above their portraits. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 in the middle, like the atrium of the Eomans, and all 
 the others opening out of it. In this house great care 
 is taken to place all the objects which the deceased 
 liked for his use or his adornment — his arms, his gems, 
 the carpets and the vases which he paid so dearly for, 
 in order that he may find them if he needs them. It is 
 with the same idea that his " eternal abode " is decorated 
 with the scenes he loved in life. It is hoped that 
 all these pictures of feasts, games, and dances of which 
 he is supposed to be still cognisant, will console him for 
 his long, sad solitude. The reality charmed him when 
 he was alive ; it is thought the picture will suffice him 
 now that he is nothing more than a shade. Only these 
 paintings, in order to produce their effect, must be faith- 
 ful and carefully executed. They are done for him 
 alone, since the tomb, once closed, is not opened again to 
 the living : but what of that ? They shall be made as 
 beautiful, as exact as possible for him. When they 
 meet that eye which we believe to be not entirely 
 sightless, it must be able to draw illusion and life from 
 them. Unless I am mistaken, this is how it became 
 customary to paint such animated and joyous scenes in 
 the torabs.^ 
 
 These scenes, precisely because they are so faithful, 
 have the advantage of taking us into the midst of 
 Etruscan life. We see them as they were five or six 
 
 ^ In Greece too, in spite of the progress of ideas, this primitive con- 
 ception of the other life was never effaced. When at Tanagra and 
 elsewhere those charming statuettes were placed in the tombs, which 
 have come out of them again after so many centuries, and which 
 amateurs contend for with such fury, it was doubtless that they might 
 keep the dead company.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 83 
 
 centuries before our era, at the beginning of the Eoman 
 Eepublic. We divine their tastes, their habits, their 
 everyday life, and their favourite occupations. War 
 was evidently not among the latter ; for we have re- 
 marked that it never figures among the tombs at Tar- 
 quinii. We find a few warriors, it is true ; but equipped 
 with such brilliant arms, and covered with such 
 coquettish ornaments, that they are evidently more 
 ready for show than for battle. But if war is absent 
 from these pictures where the artists painted what the 
 Etruscans liked to see, it proves that the Etruscans had 
 no taste for war. All antiquity reproached them for 
 their love of peace, and even gentle Virgil himself could 
 not help falling foul of them. He supposes one of their 
 chiefs, whom they have deserted in battle, to address 
 them in these cruel words : " Of what use to you are 
 your glaives, and what do you do with those darts 
 which you hold in your hands ? You have only heart 
 for pleasure ; you are only brave in the combats of the 
 night. Listen ! The crooked flute announces the feasts 
 of Bacchus. To sit at a well-furnished board, and 
 stretch your hands towards full cups — these are your 
 delights. These are your wonted exploits." ^ It must 
 be owned that the paintings of Corneto show these re- 
 proaches not to have been unfounded. They give us 
 the idea of a rich society anxious to enjoy its fortune. 
 Good living and the arts are its passion ; it passes life 
 joyously ; its manners are not austere. The women 
 sit at the feast with the men, which was not allowed 
 at "Rome until very late. The highest personages do 
 
 ' ^n., XI. 734.
 
 84 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 not scruple to take part in the dance ; they even wish it 
 to be known, as if it were a distinction, and in the frescoes 
 in which they figure they have their names written 
 above their heads. These are portraits, tlien, that we are 
 looking at, and although the originals no longer exist, 
 we see very well what they must have been. Men and 
 women appear to us in their wonted attitudes, with the 
 very dresses they used to wear, and which the artist has 
 copied minutely. These details of costume, to which 
 we are at first tempted to pay but slight attention, 
 must not be neglected, and Dr Helbig's labours show 
 the profit to be drawn from their close study. What 
 adds to their importance is that the Eomans and Etrus- 
 cans of this period must have dressed much in the same 
 style. We know that the Romans borrowed from 
 the Etruscans the ornaments of their magistrates and 
 the insignia of their priests. It is very probable that 
 private people also imitated their attire. They had 
 then too much to do themselves to trouble about 
 such grave trifles ; besides, they lacked the species 
 of ingenuity and inventiveness of mind needed for the 
 contriving of a costume, and found it very simple to 
 take their fashions from their neighbours. We have no 
 monument remaining such as would bring the Eomans 
 of the first century before our eyes. " If," says Professor 
 Helbig, " we would animate the streets of the great city, 
 and see them as they were on holidays, we must in 
 thought fill them with the men and women portrayed 
 in the old tombs of Tarquinii. The women walk about 
 in that high, conical, parti-coloured cap called hUulus. 
 A broad riband fastens it towards the middle of the 
 head, while another fixes it on the forehead. A sort of
 
 THE ETEtJSCAN TOMKS AT COHNETO. 85 
 
 veil, red or brown in colour, hangs from the top of the 
 tutulus or is draped upon the shoulder. The men wear 
 the pilcus, a high stiff' cap, something like that of the 
 women." ^ This is how we must imagine the contem- 
 poraries of Camillus to have dressed, and not in the fancy 
 costumes given to them by our painters and sculptors. 
 These fashions, derived by the Romans from the Etrus- 
 cans, lasted until the time when Greece made them adopt 
 hers, and it may be said that the women never quite 
 gave them up. When they left off the ungraceful cap 
 they had worn for so many centuries, they kept the 
 ribands which surrounded it, and turned it into an orna- 
 ment to twine in their hair. These fillets and the long 
 robe descending to the feet, were the adornment and dis- 
 tinction of honest women, courtesans being forbidden to 
 wear them. Thus Ovid, who desires it to be well known 
 that he is only addressing light women, takes care to 
 say : " Hence, ye elegant bandlets, badges of modesty ! 
 with ye have I nought to do " {Nil miki cum vitta ! ) ^ 
 
 Herr Brunn, the learned professor of Munich, rightly 
 observes that, among the Etruscan monuments remain- 
 
 1 The ^i?CHS was the head-dress of freemen, and was placed on the 
 heads of slaves when they are enfranchised. It thus became for the 
 people a symbol of liberty. On the coin struck by Brutus after the 
 death of Caesar is found a filcus between two daggers with these 
 words, " Eidus Martice," which recalls the date of the Dictator's assas- 
 sination. During the French Revolution, ths cap of liberty and the 
 Phrygian cap, which are not quite the same thing, were confounded. 
 The latter, on Phrygian coins, is worn by Midas. The French are said 
 to have adopted it because it was worn by the Marseillais when they 
 entered Paris singing the hymn ofEongct de I'IsIe." (See Professor 
 Helbig's note on the pileus published in the Siizungsberichte of the 
 Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 1880, I. 4.) 
 
 2 Ovid, Remed. a?H.,386.
 
 86 TItE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND ViRGlt. 
 
 ing to us, those which seem the oldest do not contain 
 any representation of a mythological snbject. Not only 
 are there no scenes borrowed from the Greek legends, 
 but even the Etruscan gods themselves are absent from 
 them. Only the dead is thought of : his pleasures, his 
 honours, the feasts and dances of which it is desired 
 to give him the spectacle, and the games celebrated at 
 his funeral. The legitimate conclusion seems to be 
 that the Etruscans were then less superstitious than 
 they became later on. With nations, as with individuals, 
 age often enfeebles belief ; but it rendered the Etruscans, 
 on the contrary, more devout. Greece soon offered 
 them all her fables, and they were accepted with re- 
 markable eagerness. There is at Corneto an important 
 tomb which enables us to be present, as it were, at this 
 invasion of Greek mythology. As it contains a paint- 
 ing of Tartarus, it has been called the Tomba del Oreo 
 It is easy to see that it was not all decorated by the 
 same artist, and one feels different epochs and different 
 hands. We find first, near the entry, one of those 
 feasts of which I have already spoken, and which 
 are so common in the sepulchres of Etruria. It 
 is treated in the usual manner of the painters of the 
 country. The personages are portraits ; the scene is 
 stamped with a grand character of simple truth. 
 Suddenly the system changes, and we enter upon a 
 cycle of new subjects. The artists take to represent- 
 ing Grecian legends, and interpret them by processes 
 familiar to Greek art. We have I'luto seated on his 
 throne, and Proserpine standing at his side. The atti- 
 tude of the king of Hades is full of majesty. He 
 stretches his hand towards a three-headed warrior in
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT COUNETO. 87 
 
 front of him, as if to give him orders. This warrior, 
 covered with the armour of a knight, is Geryon, son of 
 the Earth, the giant who revolted against Jupiter, and 
 who became, as a punishment for his insolence, one of 
 Pluto's servants. A little further on, a venerable old 
 man, his head covered with a mantle, leans upon a stick. 
 His eyes are closed, he leans forward as if to listen 
 to someone who is questioning him, his features have 
 an air of melancholy. We do not need to read the in- 
 scription by which he is designated in order to recognise 
 in him Tiresias, the divine blind man. Opposite to the 
 old man, and as if to form a contrast to him, Memnon — 
 handsome Memnon, as Homer calls him — in an elegant 
 effeminate attitude and clad in a sumptuous costume, 
 personifies the heroes of Asia. Between Memnon and 
 Tiresias rises a large tree, upon whose branches climb 
 a crowd of strange little beings resembling men. These 
 are probably the souls of the vulgar dead, of whom 
 Virgil tells us that they crowd on the shores of the 
 Styx more numerous than the flocks of birds that 
 assemble to flee the first winter colds, or than the 
 leaves when the winds of autumn sow them on the 
 roads.^ Behind these figures were doubtless many others 
 representing the chief inhabitants of hell; but now 
 only that of Theseus is clearly distinguishable. He 
 gazes sadly upon a personage whose features are very 
 much obliterated, and who must be his friend Pirithous. 
 They had planned together to carry off Proserpine, and 
 are cruelly expiating their crime in hell. A horrible- 
 looking demon called Tuchulcha (the artist has taken 
 
 1 ^n., VI. 309.
 
 88 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 care to tell us his name), shakes over their heads a 
 furious serpent. His mouth, or rather beak, is wide 
 open, as if uttering a frightful yell. Perhaps he is 
 emitting the vengeful cry which Virgil makes re-echo 
 in hell around Theseus : 
 
 " Discite justiciam moniti et non temnere divos" ^ 
 
 In the midst of all these pictures of Tartarus is found, 
 one knows not why, an almost comic scene borrowed 
 . from the Odyssey. It represents Ulysses blinding the 
 Cyclops. It is a much less careful picture than the 
 rest, the treatment being perfunctory. The Cyclops, 
 in particular, with his great ears sticking up and his 
 gigantic face, quite resembles a caricature. It is diffi- 
 cult to understand what the adventures of Ulysses 
 and Polyphemus have to do here, or what reason there 
 could have been to represent them in a tomb. 
 
 The decoration of the Tomba del Oreo is, then, nearly 
 all Greek. The artist who painted on these walls Plato 
 and Proserpine, Tiresias and Theseus, doubtless imitated 
 some work known and admired among the Greeks, as 
 that of Polygnotus adorned the famous portico of 
 Delphi. Yet there is a personage in the fresco of Cor- 
 neto who seems to belong especially to Etruria. It is 
 the one called Charun. He appears again and again, 
 and is always represented with a sort of complacency. 
 Charun is a fiend upon whom popular imagination 
 seems to have accumulated all that could render an 
 inhabitant of hell at once repulsive and formidable. 
 His flesh is green, his mouth immense and furnished 
 with menacing teeth, and his nose is bent like a vul- 
 
 1 ^En., VI. 620.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 89 
 
 ture's beak ; he has large wings on his back, and in his 
 hands he grasps a double hammer. Although this 
 figure is quite foreign to Greek art, Dr Helbig bids us 
 remark that the Etruscans borrowed it from Greece. 
 The name Charun shows the origin of the personage. 
 He is old Charon, the ferryman of hell, whom Virgil 
 represents with a disordered beard, flaming eyes, a dirty 
 garment cast over his shoulder, and an oar in his hand, 
 which served him to keep off the crowd of the dead.^ 
 In the alteration to which the Etruscans subject him in 
 order to transform him into the tormentor of souls, 
 they have still imitated Greece, whom, it would seem, 
 they were unable to do without. When Polygnotus 
 wished to represent Erynoraos, the demon of putrefac- 
 tion, it occurred to him to give him a dark blue colour 
 like that of the flies which infest meat. But with 
 Greek artists these are but the fancies of a moment. 
 Their caprice satisfied, they soon abandoned them in 
 order to return to simplicity and nature. In painting 
 hell, they have as much as possible replaced the mon- 
 sters by allegories — Terror, Grief, Sleep, etc. — which 
 gives them an opportunity to depict noble attitudes and 
 beautiful forms. The Etruscans, on the contrary, have 
 plunged into the horrible, and their imagination has 
 taken pleasure in the most repulsive spectacles. It is 
 evident that this community, in growing old, gave itself 
 up to the terrors of the other life. It takes pleasure in 
 peopling that other world with monsters, and makes it 
 a place of dread. It invents all kinds of tortures for 
 the dead, and supposes that in becoming unhappy they 
 
 1 ^-Eh., VI. 299.
 
 90 THE COUNTRY OF ROKACE AND ViRGiL 
 
 become maleticent and cruel. Formerly they pleased 
 them with joyous festivals, now they require executions ; 
 they wish their tombs to be sprinkled with blood, and 
 Etruria, to satisfy them, becomes more prodigal in 
 gladiatorial combats. Hunting scenes or dances are no 
 longer represented on the walls of their tombs, but are re- 
 placed by scenes of murder. A tomb discovered at Vulei 
 by Alexandre rran(^ois is adorned with excellent paint- 
 ings, comparable in execution with the finest remaining 
 to us from antiquity. The subject was drawn from the 
 Iliad, but by a strange and lugubrious caprice the artist 
 has seen fit to choose from the Homeric poem that scene 
 which shocks us the most — that where Achilles, having 
 taken twelve noble and brave Trojans in the Eiver 
 Xanthe, brings them " like young fawns trembling with 
 fear," and with his own hand immolates them at the 
 tomb of his friend Petroclus. Homer seems only to 
 speak with repugnance of this action of his hero, and 
 condemns him in relating it. "Achilles," he tells us, 
 " was shaken by sombre and cruel thoughts." How 
 happens it that several centuries after, in the full bloom 
 of civilization, a painter has chosen to reproduce pre- 
 cisely what the simple poet of a barbarous age would 
 have palliated ? He even seems to have found the 
 subject not repulsive enough for him, for he has felt it 
 necessary to add to it the hideous and bestial figure of 
 Charun. The demon stands beside Achilles, and seems 
 to incite him to accomplish the bloody immolation. 
 This sinister personage evidently troubled the imagina- 
 tion of the Etruscans. They were indeed so terrified 
 at it themselves that they believed other people would 
 be afraid of it likewise. Titus Livius relates that in
 
 tiiE tlTEtJSCAK tOMfeS AT CORNETO. 01 
 
 their fidits with the Eomans in defence of their inde- 
 pendeuce, their priests flung themselves upon the enemy 
 " with blazing torches, with serpents in their hands, and 
 aspects of fury,"^ — that is to say, imitating as far as 
 possible their Charun. Is it not curious that this 
 country, which four or five centuries before Christ con- 
 cerned itself so much with the other life and made such 
 horrible pictures of hell and its inhabitants, should be 
 the one where, in the Middle Ages, the poem of Dante 
 and the frescoes of Orcagna were produced ? In every 
 epoch the Devil filled it with the same terrors. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE PAINTINGS IN THE TOMBS THE ONLY MEANS WE HAVE 
 OF BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH ETRUSCAN CIVILIZA- 
 TION — ANCIENT TOMBS — THEY DO NOT DIFFER FROM 
 THOSE OF OTHER ITALIAN RACES — THE DATE AT WHICH 
 WE FIND AMBER, AND WHY WE CEASE TO FIND IT A 
 LITTLE LATER — VASI DI BUCOHERO NERO — IN- 
 FLUENCE OF THE CARTHAGINIANS — AT WHAT MOMENT 
 IT MUST HAVE BEGUN — HAVE WE A RIGHT TO INFER 
 FROM THE PRESENCE OF PHCENICIAN OBJECTS IN THE 
 TOMBS OF ETRURIA THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE 
 ETRUSCANS ? — THE INFLUENCE OF GREECE — AT WHAT 
 EPOCH WAS IT EXERCISED ? — CAN IT BE SAID THAT 
 ETRUSCAN ART NEVER POSSESSED ORIGINALITY? — 
 PAINTINGS AT CCERE — DECA.DENCE AND END OF 
 ETRUSCAN ART. 
 
 What gives a peculiar value to these tombs and their 
 paintings, and explains the interest taken in their study, 
 is the circumstance that they alone at the present day can 
 
 1 VII. 17.
 
 92 THK COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 afford us some light respecting ancient Etruria. We 
 could do without them more easily, and should have a 
 more direct and certain means of acquainting ourselves 
 with the Etruscans, if we knew their language ; but this 
 has hitherto remained a riddle. Science has in our 
 days tackled problems apparently more difficult, and 
 solved them. She reads the inscriptions graven on the 
 monuments of Egypt and Assyria, and she has found 
 again the language of the Persians, and restored their 
 sacred books. The Etruscan tongue did not seem to 
 be more unyielding. It was spoken or understood down 
 to the time of the Eoman Empire. Many of their 
 inscriptions remain to us, whose characters are easy to 
 read ; and as they are all epitaphs, their meaning may be 
 approximatively guessed. So it cannot be said that no 
 one understands them. On the contrary, everybody 
 flatters himself that he can explain them ; but each 
 explains them in a different manner, wliich is worse 
 than not understanding. In reality, when we would 
 analyse scientifically, distinguish the verb from the 
 noun, and seek the exact sense of the words, everything 
 escapes us. After a century of efforts we are no further 
 advanced than Lanzi, when in 1789 he published his 
 work entitled Saggio di lingua Mrusca. It was im- 
 possible not to nourish some hopes when fifteen years 
 ago it was known that a distinguished savant, W. 
 Corssen, known for his fine works on the old Latin 
 tongue, was about to apply tlic sagacity of his mind 
 and the certainty of liis method to the interpretation of 
 Etruscan. But Corssen was not more fortunate than 
 others. He died, one may say, in harness, and his book, 
 which was published after his death, has only added a
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 93 
 
 few hypotheses more to those already ventured. How- 
 ever mortifying the avowal, it must be owned that 
 Science has this time been beaten. We must therefore 
 resign ourselves to ignorance, and wait until some new 
 discovery allows our philologists to try their fortune 
 under better conditions. 
 
 Since the inscriptions remain undecipherable, we 
 have no other means of entering this unknown world 
 than by the study of the only monuments it has left us 
 — that is to say, the tombs, with the articles that 
 furnish and the frescoes which decorate them. But 
 the tombs can only be of any use to us if we manage to 
 fix their age. Until we have established a kind of 
 chronology between them, and distinguished the ancient 
 from the more recent ones, we can deduce no conclu- 
 sions as to the history of development and progress of 
 the race who built them. Unfortunately this work is 
 not only indispensable, but also very delicate. The 
 monuments of Etruria having been almost always 
 imitated from foreign models, it is by comparing them 
 with those of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece that we may 
 hope to find out to what epoch and to what school they 
 belong. Those who undertake to make these com- 
 parisons must therefore bear in mind and before their 
 eyes all the works of antiquity. Add that the relation 
 between the original and the copy is usually very diffi- 
 cult to seize. It is often a detail insignificant in appear- 
 ance — the arrangement of a dress, the ornamentation of 
 a piece of furniture, a feature, a line in the face or the 
 costume, which causes the imitation to be guessed and 
 the original to be found again. The undertaking 
 was very difficult; it required very sagacious critical
 
 94 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL, 
 
 power and an infinity of knowledge. I think, however, 
 that it may be said to have succeeded admirably. 
 
 It is true that among these tombs the most ancient 
 are easy to distinguish. Here antiquity betrays itself 
 by certain signs, and error is not possible. Of late years 
 the excavations at Corneto have brought to light a great 
 number which go back to a very distant epoch. They 
 are all composed of a round hole a mHre and a half 
 broad and from two to three metres deep. At the 
 bottom of this kind of well was placed the urn con- 
 taining the ashes of the deceased. In ordinary sepulchres 
 it rests directly on the earth, but it has sometimes been 
 enclosed in a kind of round or square recipient, for its 
 better protection.^ Around the funeral urn, the piety 
 of the survivors has placed divers objects which must 
 have then been precious. There are necklaces, brace- 
 lets, bronze fibulffi ; and there are also vases of a grey 
 or blackish colour, made of a somewhat impure clay, 
 and formed by hand. Some of these vases are without 
 any ornament whatever, while others have lines in the 
 form of circles or squares, traced upon the fresh clay 
 with a pointed instrument. This is what is called, in 
 the language of archaeologists, the geometrical decora- 
 tion. Almost all important museums contain these 
 primitive vases ; and although they are not very beauti- 
 ful, I must own that I cannot look upon them without 
 a certain emotion. This, then, is how the taste for art 
 first manifested itself in man. These clumsily traced 
 
 ^ In the Museo Civico just established at Bolocrna, under the in- 
 telligent direction of M. Gozzadini, the hai)j)y plan has been followed 
 of placing some of these tombs with all the objects they contained. It 
 is a very curioug and most instructive exhibition,
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 95 
 
 lines prove that to provide for his nourishment and his 
 safety no longer sufficed him ; that he was sensible of a 
 want to beautify the utensils which served his needs ; 
 that beyond the necessary he caught a glimpse of some- 
 thing else, and began to feel the value of the useless. 
 It is a new instinct revealing itself in him, and which 
 will not cease to grow and become more perfect. In 
 these rough designs lay ingermed all the progress of 
 the future. If, after having glanced at these humble 
 beginnings, we can connect them with the marvellous 
 paintings of the white lecythes of Athens, we shall 
 embrace at a glance the way which human industry 
 travelled in a few centuries. 
 
 The study of these ancient sepulchres suggests some 
 important reflections. First of all, it must be remarked 
 that neither iron nor gold is found. This is a proof 
 that they belong to a time when these metals were 
 unknown, or at least very rare, and they probably go 
 back to the epoch when the Age of Bronze finishes and 
 the Age of Iron begins. In what are called the terremare 
 of Northern Italy, some remains of villages built on 
 piles in the first times of the Age of Bronze have been 
 discovered. Among all sorts of detritus, fragments of 
 pottery remained, which were carefully collected. It 
 has been found that the vases discovered at Corneto 
 are only an improvement on those met with in the 
 terremare of Emilia. Here, then, thanks to them, is a 
 gap filled up. We now possess the whole series of the 
 generations who have inhabited Italy, and we see the 
 march of progress uninterruptedly, frpm the most utter 
 barbarism down to the most complete civilization. 
 Let us add that the use of these vases was not peculiar
 
 96 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to Corueto ; they have been found at Bologna (the 
 ancient Felsina), at Cervetri {Coere), at Palo {Alsium), at 
 Orvieto (Vulsinii) — in short, all over Etruria. There 
 is nothing in this to excite our surprise, for it is natural 
 enough that cities of the same race should possess the 
 same industry. What is really astonishing is that 
 similar vases exist among Italian races of a different 
 origin from that of the Etruscans. Of late years the 
 taste for archaeological studies has greatly spread in 
 Italy, and every city having been seized with an ardent 
 desire to know its past, excavations have been carried 
 on methodically from one end of the peninsula to 
 the other. We may say that nearly everywhere, 
 when the deep stratum containing the most ancient 
 tombs has been penetrated, the soil has rendered the 
 same kind of remains. What has been discovered at 
 Corneto has also been found in the old cemeteries of 
 Campania, of Picenum, of the Sabina, of Latium,^ and of 
 Eome, in the sepulchres of the Esquiline and the Viminal. 
 What must we conclude from this? That the races who 
 then shared Italy were less separated from each other, 
 and less unlike than we are tempted to believe. Their 
 frontiers were not rigorously closed, and merchants 
 passed through bearing the utensils necessary to life, 
 and the ornaments which adorn it. There were then, 
 even in this primitive and savage epoch, some elements 
 of commerce — that is to say, some elements of civiliza- 
 tion. The chief difference between these peoples is the 
 
 1 The custom of giving funeral urns the form of little cabins was 
 thought to be peculiar to Latium ; and until lately urns of this kind 
 had only been found in the territory of Alba. Some have, however, 
 just been found at Corneto exactly similar to those of Latiuni,
 
 THE ETRtrSCAN TOMBS AT C6RNET0. 97 
 
 greater or less rapidity with which these germs developed 
 among them. There are some for whom this first period 
 lasted longer, while others passed through all the stages 
 more rapidly. One is tempted to believe that directly 
 Italy was conquered by the Eomans it became quite 
 Eoman, and that being reduced by the same domina- 
 tion, all its peoples took to living the same life. This 
 is a delusion that must be got rid of. There are some 
 whose position and whose character long defended them 
 against the influence of the Imperial city. We must 
 picture to ourselves that in this large country, which 
 now seems to us so enlightened and so prosperous, there 
 still remained islets of barbarity, as it were, in the 
 midst of the general culture. History cannot teach us 
 this, for it does not descend to such details, bat Archaeo- 
 logy reveals it. It puts this persistence of ancient 
 customs, this struggle of the local mind, obstinately 
 resisting the language and usages of Eome, vividly 
 before our eyes. In some recent excavations at Este 
 (the ancient Atcste), tombs were discovered containing 
 vases of rather rough make, and inscriptions in the old 
 dialect of the country. One would think they dated two 
 or three centuries before our era, had not a medal of 
 Augustus been found in one of them. It is clear that 
 these countries had not quite submitted to Koman 
 influence at the end of the Eepublic. It was the Empire 
 which united in the same civilization first Italy, and 
 then all the world. 
 
 Etruria had progressed much more rapidly. Above 
 all, Tarquinii, near the ocean, and seeming from her 
 mountain height to call the stranger to her, was early 
 visited by bold merchants who brought her the products 
 
 G
 
 98 THE COUNTRY OF HOKACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 of their industry. So her progress was very rapid. A 
 curious tomb, discovered not long since, enables this to 
 be verified. In one of those cylindrical holes of which 
 I have just spoken, above the cinerary urn at the 
 bottom, was found a stone sarcophagus, containing the 
 remains of a little girl whose body was not burnt ; and 
 with the poor child they buried all her jewellery. This 
 chiefly consists of rings and necklaces of bronze, only 
 differing from those of the preceding epoch by their 
 more skilful workmanship. But there are also some 
 gold ornaments, and some pieces of amber. This tomb, 
 placed so close to the other, and doubtless belonging to 
 nearly the same epoch, marks a first step in that career 
 of luxury and elegance in which Etruria was to stop no 
 more. 
 
 I would it were possible, a p'opos of the amber 
 ornaments in this tomb and in many others of the 
 same period, to analyse in detail a memoir of Dr 
 Helbig touching the employment of this precious 
 substance in ancient times. It is an interesting 
 chapter of tliis history of ancient commerce, which also 
 has a bearing on that of Greek art. The few words I 
 may say on this work will show its importance. 
 l)r Helbig begins by confirming the particulars which 
 the ancients give us touching the origin of this 
 amber. It travelled by land, passing through the 
 whole of Germany, tribe by tribe. The Ilhone took it 
 to the great entrepot at Marseilles, whence it was 
 distributed among the Hellenic nations, and it entered 
 Italy by Pannonia and Venetia. The banks of the Po 
 seem to have always been the centre of this commerce 
 whence it penetrated among the peoples of Italy.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 99 
 
 Amber is not found in the tombs reaching back to the 
 Age of Bronze, but a little later it abounds. Coquetry 
 and superstition united to augment its value. Orna- 
 ments were made of it to set off the beauty of women, 
 and amulets to preserve them from throat diseases and 
 the effects of the evil eye. What is most curious is that 
 it did not long hold its own. In many parts, and espe- 
 cially among the richer and more civilised people, amber 
 suddenly passed out of fashion. After having been 
 found in abundance among tombs of a certain antiquity, 
 it is no longer seen in more recent ones — that is to say, 
 at the very moment when, international relations 
 becoming more frequent, it was easier and less costly to 
 preserve. It is a strange fact, of which Dr Helbig 
 has been the first to give us the reason. According to 
 him, all is explained by the ascendency acquired by 
 Greece over the Italians. Greece never cared to 
 execute her masterpieces in amber, and it is easy to 
 understand why. " It is a fundamental principle 
 of Art," Dr Helbig tells us, " to subordinate the 
 material to the adequate expression of the idea." In 
 order that it may entirely obey the will of the artist, it 
 must have no exigencies of its own. Well, amber only 
 produces its full effect under certain conditions, and if 
 certain properties are respected which are peculiar to 
 it. It does not then lend itself with docility to all 
 that one would fain do with it. It has this disadvan- 
 tage : its transparency and the brilliancy of its surface 
 mar the clear perception of forms. This is what made 
 the Greeks averse to amber. It is from a similar 
 motive that, although they use opaque glass, they never 
 employ the transparent material. They know that the
 
 100 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 latter does not admit of perfectly clear and defined 
 forms being given to objects, and that when they are 
 looked at, the lines of the reverse mingling with those 
 of the front produce a confused whole. It must, how- 
 ever, be remarked that they were not always of this 
 way of thinking. In the Homeric age, when they did 
 not know these refinements, they esteemed it much, 
 and used it in their jewellery. One of the suitors of 
 the steadfast Penelope can think of no better means of 
 seduction than to offer her " a gold necklace with beads 
 of amber, which is like the sun." They ceased to prize 
 it directly a more elevated sentiment of art awoke among 
 them. They communicated their repugnance for this 
 rebellious material to all the peoples subject to their 
 influence, which proves to what a degree their tastes 
 dominated those who learned from them, and what 
 faithful disciples they made of their imitators. In 
 Etruria, in Latium, in Campania, so long as Greek art 
 flourishes, amber is absent from the tombs. It only 
 becomes fashionable again at the beginning of the 
 Eoman Empire. Professor Helbig infers that at this 
 moment classic traditions are about to be lost ; and his 
 conclusion is legitimate. Doubtless people prided 
 themselves then on a passionate love of Art, and the 
 number of amateurs who paid dearly for statues and 
 pictures was never greater ; but their taste is no longer 
 so pure. The extraordinary and the costly are more 
 sought after than the beautiful. Precious materials are 
 loved for themselves, because of the price they cost, 
 and they are employed in works for which they are 
 unsuited. In architecture, for example., peperino and 
 travertine, the fine stones which served for the con-
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 101 
 
 struction of the majestic monuments of Eome, are 
 disdained ; white marble itself seems too bare and cold ; 
 and from far-distant countries rare stones and marbles 
 are sent for, porphyry and obsidian, to surprise the 
 eye and strike the imagination by the richness of the 
 materials. That amber should profit by this change in 
 public taste is easy to understand. The infatuation 
 inspired by it reached its climax under Nero. It being 
 found that it did not arrive in sufficiently large 
 quantities, a Eoman knight was sent expressly across 
 Germany, as far as the North Sea, to stimulate the 
 commerce in it. It was made into necklaces, rings, 
 and bracelets for the toilet, into statuettes to adorn the 
 house, and in the heats of summer amber balls were 
 held in the hand, to refresh and perfume at the same 
 time. In the rough, or worked, it was used everywhere, 
 and the Emperor Heliogabalus grieved that he had not 
 enough to pave the streets through which he must pass. 
 Let us return to the tombs of Etruria, and to 
 the attempt which has been made to classify these 
 according to their age. We stopped at the point 
 when amber and gold made their first appearance, 
 and when the brown vases with geometrical designs 
 begin to assume less crude forms. The follow- 
 ing epoch presents a more sensible progress. It is 
 then we meet for the first time those beautiful black 
 vases called by the Italians " vasi di hucchero ncro" 
 first quite smooth and then ornamented with reliefs. 
 They must have been regarded as marvels of elegance 
 among people who had but just become acquainted 
 with the precious metals, and who were wont to content 
 themselves with their primitive pottery. Later, when 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 102 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the painted vases of Greece were known, they passed 
 out of fashion and fell into discredit. We see that it 
 was " the thing " among the fops of Eome to laugh at 
 " this old black crockery," and that Martial was 
 obliged to remind these scorners that a powerful king, 
 Porsenna, had formerly been satisfied with it.^ 
 
 The tombs in which these vases are found contain much 
 more curious objects, which must for a moment arrest 
 our attention. These are scarchei of hard stone, jewels 
 of very delicate workmanship, and perfume vases orna- 
 mented with strange figures. Winged sphinxes are 
 seen ; fantastic beasts ; stiff personages in little tunics, 
 like those covering the obelisks ; thick-set, bearded 
 giants holding lions by the paw, as in the bas-reliefs of 
 the palaces of Nineveh. The origin of these objects is 
 not doubtful. We have before our eyes the products of 
 an Oriental art, and we recognise at once in their jewels 
 and these vases importations from Assyria, Egypt, or 
 some neighbouring nation. How is it that they come 
 so far, to be buried in Italian sepulchres ? Can we find 
 out who undertook to bring them, by what road they 
 travelled, and to what date this first invasion of the 
 East goes back ? Grave problems these, which were 
 long discussed, and whose solution is now foreseen. 
 
 First of all, it is certain that the Etruscans did not 
 receive them direct from Egypt or Assyria. The 
 Egyptians, whom Professor Helbig styles " the most 
 hydrophobic nation of the ancient world," did not 
 willingly venture on these long voyages. As for 
 Assyria, its natural frontiers were at some distance 
 
 ^ XIV. 98. The Louvre Museum contains a great number of these 
 " vasi di bucchero nero."
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 103 
 
 from the Mediterranean, which it only touched at 
 moments and as the result of ephemeral conquests. 
 But between Assyria and Egypt there was a nation who 
 undertook to trade for its neighbours, viz. the Phoeni- 
 cians. Uninventive themselves, they excelled in making 
 use of the inventions of others. Like the genuine 
 traffickers they are, they have not, so far as they them- 
 selves are concerned, any care for originality ; they 
 simply manufacture at home and send abroad goods 
 that are sure to find a market. As those from Egypt 
 and Assyria seem to please foreigners, they imitate, 
 sometimes also spoiling them, and spread them through 
 the entire world. So thus they came into all the 
 countries where we find them through this inter- 
 mediary. Greece herself, in spite of the superiority 
 of her genius, of which she was always conscious, and 
 although she had already produced great poets, was first 
 tributary to Oriental art, and it is in imitating that 
 she learned to surpass it. Much more then did the 
 Italians, less happily gifted by nature and less intrinsi- 
 cally rich, undergo its charm. It must be remarked 
 that the Latins welcomed it not less warmly than the 
 Etruscans. In 1876, near Palestrina, the ancient 
 Prteneste, a veritable treasure was found, composed of 
 objects formed of gold, silver, ivory, amber, bronze, 
 glass, or iron, and containing vases, tripods, jewellery, 
 arms, and utensils of all kinds ; above all, cups, of 
 which one is decorated inside with different subjects 
 chiselled in relief. This is assuredly one of the most 
 curious pieces of Oriental goldsmiths' work we possess.^ 
 
 * This cup has been studied by M. Clermont, Gannau, in his work 
 
 entitled I' ImageiHe ph^nicienne.
 
 104 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 That these cups, these vases, and this jewellery was 
 brought into Italy by the Phoenicians can be the less 
 doubted from the fact that one of the' objects found at 
 Palestrina bears a Phoenician inscription. But what 
 Pliojnicians do we mean ? Under that name two 
 peoples may be understood, whose destinies were very 
 different, although their origin was the same. One of 
 them inhabited the borders of Asia ; the other, an off- 
 spring of the first, had established itself in Africa. Did 
 the merchandise we find again in Italy come from Tyre 
 or from Carthage ? Dr Helbig answers without 
 hesitation that they came from Carthage. The chief 
 reason he has for his belief is that we know of no 
 relations entertained by the people of Tyre with the 
 Italic races, whereas it is certain that the Carthaginians 
 frequented the ports of the peninsula, and brought 
 thither the products of their industry. Supposing the 
 hypothesis to be sure, we at the same time succeeded 
 in fixing with great probability the epoch when this 
 commerce was carried on. Dr Helbig thinks him- 
 self justified in affirming that it does not go back 
 further than the seventh or eighth century before our 
 era. In the sixth century the relations between the 
 Carthaginians and the Italians became closer. They 
 united to oppose the progress of the Greeks, who were 
 masters of Southern Italy, and wished to push their 
 dominion further. It cannot be doubted that clever 
 traders like the Carthaginians profited by this circum- 
 stance to place their wares favourably. They did not 
 like war for its own sake, cared but little for glory, and 
 only sought conquests or alliances with a view to 
 creating outlets for commerce. So we find that at the
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 105 
 
 end of the sixth century they signed with the young 
 Eoman Eepublic a treaty of commerce, a translation 
 of which Polybius has preserved for us. Eome was 
 then of very small importance ; but when one is astute, 
 one must foresee all, and Carthage meant to prepare 
 the future for herself. It is in consequence of this 
 treaty, and of the alliance with the Etruscans, that the 
 Carthaginian ships, certain of not being molested, brought 
 into Italy all those precious objects with which the con- 
 temporaries of Brutus and Porsenna adorned themselves 
 during their lives, and which, after death, were buried 
 with them. The sixth century before our era, and the 
 beginning of the fifth, are then the epoch when this 
 commerce was the most active ; and it is, above all, to 
 this moment that it is natural to attribute those great 
 importations of Oriental objects found in the tombs of 
 Italy .^ And this settles a question. Everybody knows 
 how many discussions have been raised, and how many 
 hypotheses started, with regard to the origin of the 
 Etruscans, The presence among them of objects of 
 Oriental make has often been invoked in these discus- 
 sions as a decisive argument. It was for many savants 
 
 ^ Fran9ois Lenormant, while generally accepting Dr Helbig's 
 opinions, subjects them, however, to a restriction. He thinks that 
 some of these apparently Oriental objects were brought into Italy, not 
 by the Carthaginians, but by the Greeks. The Greeks also imitated 
 the East, and at this moment the products of Ionian industry did 
 not much differ from those of the Asiatics. Lenormant brought 
 home from Vulei and Cervetri vases whose style seemed at first sight 
 absolutely Egyptian or Phoenician. But on observing the paintings 
 on them more closely, it is perceived that they depict purely Greek 
 fables. According to him, then, even in this primitive commerce we 
 must give some place to the Greeks.
 
 106 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 a manifest proof that Herodotus was right in saying 
 they came from Lydia. " See," they used to say, " how 
 faithful they have remained to the art of their country. 
 In leaving Asia, they evidently brought the taste with 
 them, and kept it in their new fatherland." This seem- 
 ingly victorious argument has now no longer any force. 
 We know at what moment the Etruscans received 
 among them the products of the East, and who taught 
 them to know and love them. They had then already 
 been several centuries in Italy, and had had plenty of 
 time to forget their origin. So the favour with which 
 they received the merchandise brought them by the 
 Carthaginians is not accounted for, as is asserted, by 
 the charm of memory, but by the attraction of novelty. 
 It is a n)istake to think they had piously preserved 
 Oriental custom from the day when they quitted their 
 native land. I have just shown that we possess monu- 
 ments more ancient, and nearer the period when they 
 entered Italy ; and these monuments contain nothing 
 recalling the East. It is certain, then, that the influence 
 of Asia upon the art and industry of the Etruscans has 
 nothing to do with the problem of their origin. This, 
 I repeat, is a settled question. We still remain in 
 ignorance as to their race and the country they came 
 from,^ but the ground is cleared of an hypothesis, which 
 will make the solution of the problem more easy. 
 
 We are coming to a rev^olution which took place in 
 Etruscan art. The vessels of Carthage must have met 
 
 ^ In our (lays one is inclined to think there is no truth in the 
 pretty story of Herodotus, and that the Etruscans probably came b}' 
 way of the Alps. But of the race to which they belonged we are in 
 absolute ignorance.
 
 THE ETKUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 107 
 
 in the ports of Etruria those of the Greeks, and the 
 merchants of the two countries probably entered into a 
 sharp competition with each other. The relation^ of 
 the Etruscans with Greece began very early, and of this 
 we have a certain proof. Dr Helbig has shown by 
 ingenious deductions that they must have become 
 acquainted with writing about the eighth century B.C., 
 and we know that they had it from the Greelcs. The 
 alphabet they used is that of the Phoenicians, but in- 
 creased by the letters which the Greeks had added. So 
 that before the seventh century B.C. they knew Greece, 
 entertained relations with her, and had already been to 
 her school. If her influence over them was not at first 
 sovereign, it is because she herself had not yet found 
 her way, and was still content to imitate Egypt and 
 Assyria. But she was not made to remain long sub- 
 servient to the foreigner. Her natural originality 
 ended by re-awaking, and she brought to every market 
 the products of a freer, younger, more living art, in 
 which the West recognised her genius. Etruria was 
 seduced before the other Italian nations, and from that 
 moment she ceased to copy the East, and imitated 
 Greece. 
 
 Greek art is chiefly represented in Etruria by sepul- 
 chral frescoes ; and they were all painted under her 
 influence. Those of Corneta being more numerous, and 
 having all been executed in the same place and under 
 the same local influences, it is easier to compare them 
 with each other, and in comparing them to arrive at a 
 classification. This work, begun by Prof. Brunn, has been 
 pursued with still greater rigour and success by Dr 
 Helbig. His judgment is determined by reasons of
 
 108 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 many kinds, some of them rather belonging to the 
 domain of taste, while others are derived from his 
 eriyiition. A painting bears its date in the manner of 
 its execution, and a practised critic, on looking at it, 
 can tell the period of art it belongs to and the school 
 that produced it. But this sort of intuition is not 
 enough. In order that the critic's decision may be 
 accepted without contest, it is well for it to be based 
 upon more precise proofs. The processes used by the 
 artist in the details of his work may furnish them to 
 him. We see, for example, that Pliny says of 
 Polygnotus : Primus mulicres tralucida veste pinxit ; ^ 
 so that as often as we see a picture with this transparent 
 clothing which allows the forms to be guessed, we have 
 a right to suppose it posterior to Polygnotus. Precious 
 indications may sometimes be drawn from a circum- 
 stance which at first seems trivial. Thus in the Tomba 
 del Vasi Depinti the artist has represented the interior of 
 an Etruscan house. Vases are arranged on a table or on 
 the floor. Their form is elegant, and they bear black 
 figures on a reddish ground. This detail, to which we 
 do not at first pay great attention, is not without interest. 
 "We know pretty nearly about what century this kind 
 of decoration came into fashion for painted vases, and 
 when it was replaced by red figures on a black ground ; 
 so we are here in possession of an approximate date. 
 With the help of these indications, and of many 
 others which I am obliged to omit, Dr Helbig has 
 established that the oldest tombs of Corneto are not 
 anterior to the middle of the fifth century B.C. This is 
 
 1 Hist. Nat., XXXV. 9 (35).
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 109 
 
 a very important result for the history of the art and 
 civilization of Etruria. 
 
 He has also shown, by the progress remarked among 
 the frescoes, that Greek art was not introduced among 
 the Etruscans suddenly ; that it penetrated little by 
 little, insinuating itself more and more every day, and 
 becoming more and more dominant, until the moment 
 when it triumphed, without dispute and without a rival. 
 .The history of these various phases would be an 
 interesting study. It would perhaps show that after 
 liaving exalted the Etruscans too highly, we now give 
 them a worse reputation than they deserve. Prof. 
 Mommsen, their great enemy, compares them to the 
 Chinese, who are incapable of finding anything for 
 themselves, and will only allow them " the secondary 
 genius of imitation," while even as imitators he puts 
 them below all the other Italian peoples who were 
 inspired by Greek art. But we are going to show that 
 there was an epoch when they were not quite the slaves 
 of their teachers, and when they knew how to put a 
 certain originality into their imitation. We possess at 
 Paris paintings which show us what the Etruscans 
 could do when they dared to trust to their own genius. 
 One of the most interesting rooms in the old Musee 
 Napoleon III., at the Louvre, is that in which some of 
 the most beautiful antiquities have been placed that 
 come to us from ancient Coere. The public lingers 
 willingly there, to look at a large sarcophagus occupying 
 the middle of the room, and on which two personages, 
 a husband and his wife, lie half reclined. Their strange 
 costumes, their animated faces, their little bright eyes, 
 attract tlie attention of all who pass. This itself is a
 
 110 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 very curious specimen of Etruscan art ; but still more 
 curious ones are to be seen in the glass cases. Some 
 terra-cotta slabs have been placed there, which formed 
 the lining of ancient tombs. These are covered with 
 paintings executed after the manner of the archaic 
 school, and on the model of the old masters of Greece. 
 The gestures of the personages are stiff, the forms clumsy, 
 the extremities of the hands incredibly elongated, the 
 drapery regular and heavy. When sitting, they look 
 like wooden figures that have been bent in order to put 
 them on the chairs ; when they stand, their attitude is 
 contrary to all static laws, and one can see that they 
 will fall if they begin to walk. All these defects do not 
 prevent them from being perfectly lifelike, and such is 
 the attraction of life, that we look at them with 
 pleasure, in spite of the imperfections of this primitive 
 painting. One of these scenes struck me above all. It 
 represents twc aged men seated opposite to each other 
 on those seats handed down by the Etruscans to the 
 Konians, and which became the annuli chairs. One of 
 them, who seems to be the gravest and most important, 
 holde a kind of sceptre in his hand. He is speaking, 
 and the other listens. The latter, listening figure leans 
 his chin upon his hand in a natural attitude of medita- 
 tion ; a profound melancholy is impressed upon his 
 features. It is someone- in affliction, whom a friend is 
 consoling for a cruel loss he has suffered. Towards the 
 top of the picture a little winged figure, a woman 
 covered with a long red robe wliich hides her feet, flies 
 in space towards the two old men. She represents the 
 soul of the dead coming to assist at the conversation of 
 which she is the subject — a touching idea certain to come
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. Ill 
 
 to this people so occupied -vvitli the future life. People 
 so convinced that existence continues beyond the tomb 
 were naturally brought to believe that our cherished 
 dead listen every time we speak of them. 
 
 Certainly everything in this picture is not original, the 
 painter imitates the processes of a foreign art ; but one 
 feels that he is their master, and that he appropriates 
 them freely to his thoughts. The sentiment is his, and 
 he renders it as he feels it. When looking on these 
 beautiful frescoes of Coere, and others scattered among 
 the Italian museums, it is impossible not to own that 
 the nation which in those remote times possessed 
 artists capable of thus reproducing life, and giving to 
 the figures they drew this air of simple reality, were 
 capable of going further, and creating a national art. 
 It seems to me even that we can guess from these 
 beginnings what would have been the dominant 
 character of Etruscan art, could it have developed itself 
 in liberty. It would, doubtless, have cared but little 
 for the ideal ; it would not too eagerly have sought after 
 dignity and grandeur. We have seen that in the fres- 
 coes of the tombs the artists love to paint scenes of real 
 life — games, hunts, and feasts — which they depict as 
 they see them, without any attempt to ennoble them in 
 execution ; that their personages are portraits, and that 
 not only do they try to make them as like as possible, 
 but they endeavour to reproduce the least details of 
 costume. This anxiety to copy the reality exactly is 
 so natural to the Etruscan artists that it is found 
 among the sculptors as well as among the painters. 
 On visiting the room where the sarcophagi are collected 
 in the museum at Corneto, one experiences a strange
 
 112 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 impression. The dead axe sometimes represented 
 stretched full length upon their tombs as they are 
 on the pavements of our cathedrals, and sometimes 
 raised upon their elbows. The artists have been 
 careful to give them a religious attitude: men and 
 women hold a -patera in their hands, as if death had 
 surprised them while they were engaged in malting a 
 sacrifice. But in spite of the gravity of the act they 
 were accomplishing, their faces are frequently vulgar. 
 The attire and the lower part of the body are often 
 treated with elegance. The sculptor must have had 
 books of models, and have prepared in advance and at 
 leisure those parts of his work which did not change. 
 The face is that of the dead. The artist added it at the 
 last moment, and reproduced it with perfect fidelity. 
 When he has old men or women to represent, he does 
 not spare us any of the deformities inflicted by age 
 upon the human face. He shows us with complacency 
 the furrows of the brow, the projection of the features, 
 the hanging flesh, the flabby breasts, and the skinny 
 necks. This realism, sometimes coarse, at times power- 
 ful, was the tendency of Etruscan artists ; and this is 
 the way they would have continued, had they followed 
 their natural instincts, to the end. 
 
 But they turned aside from it in order to draw 
 nearer to Greek art. So long as Greece had only sent 
 them the works of her first masters, full of inexperience 
 and gropings, their admiration had not been sufticiently 
 strong to paralyse all originality. But when the 
 masterpieces came, the seduction was so strong that 
 they quite forgot themselves. In the presence of these 
 marvels they were completely subdued and vanquished.
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 113 
 
 and only thought of reproducing them. Dr Helbig 
 makes us follow the ever more and more powerful 
 influence of Greece in the frescoes of Corneto. There 
 are tombs — the more ancient ones — where national art 
 timidly tries to resist, and where the characteristics 
 of the two schools are sometimes found clumsily 
 mingled. But in the following, Greece rules with 
 undivided sway. Her victory is revealed by the 
 presence of scenes and personages borrowed from the 
 Homeric poems, by the employment of the nude, and 
 by the idealistic character of the paintings. In the 
 school of the Greeks, the taste of the Etruscan artist 
 becomes more refined and his hand more skilful. His 
 defects disappear or diminish, he produces more elegant 
 works, but his inspiration is no longer so sincere. He 
 temporises his natural qualities, and does not succeed 
 in equalling those of his masters. Soon decadence is 
 visible. It is already seen at Corneto, in the Poly- 
 phemus of the Tomba del Oreo, The defeat of Tarquinii 
 and its submission to the Eomans made it irreparable. 
 There happened then in Italy what we again see going 
 on before our eyes. All those little cities which had 
 preserved a distinct physiognomy so long as they 
 remained free and sovereign, those small capitals of 
 small states, where a certain activity of mind reigned, 
 which cultivated art and formed independent schools, 
 were absorbed in the great Roman unit. Life, as usual, 
 was borne towards the centre. The municipalities, 
 carried away in the general movement, with their eyes 
 fixed upon Eome, no longer had any character of their 
 own, and the little originality that Etruscan art had 
 left finally disappeared.
 
 114 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 This is the most important thing we learn from the 
 latest works upon the Etruscans. These works, as we 
 have just seen, embrace all their history. Without 
 leaving the hill of Corneto, we may have the spectacle 
 of all the revolutions that this mysterious race passed 
 through from its advent into Central Italy down to its 
 defeat by the Eomans. Doubtless all is not completed. 
 There remain in this history conjectures to verify, gaps 
 to fill up, and we may be sure that the excavations, 
 which continue, will add much to our knowledge. Yet the 
 great lines are traced, and we hold the sequence of the 
 chief facts. We have even succeeded in fixing some 
 rather probable facts in the midst of this dark night. 
 We know pretty nearly at what date Etruria began to 
 undergo Phoenician influence, and when Greek art was 
 revealed to her. These results are not, perhaps, so 
 striking and unforeseen as certain discoveries. They 
 were attained slowly by dint of minute observations, by 
 the efforts of assiduous labour, by collecting the shreds 
 of vases, by scrutinising old texts, and by amassing 
 small facts. This road seems long to the impatient, 
 and pleases not the makers of brilliant generalisations. 
 Of the erudite sciences it is the usual mode of pro- 
 gression : they walk by small steps, but they advance 
 always, and one cannot measure the road they have 
 made in these few years and despise them. We have 
 suffered many disappointments in our day, and we have 
 more than once been forced to abandon hopes whose 
 realisation seemed certain. Science alone has kept all 
 her promises. It is needless to recall here all the light 
 she has thrown upon the past since the beginning of 
 this century ; the study I have just made shows that at
 
 THE ETRUSCAN TOMBS AT CORNETO. 115 
 
 the moment of its conclusion she was not yet exhausted. 
 We owe her great gratitude, not only for the honour we 
 shall derive from her discoveries in the future, but for 
 the good she now does us. She has afforded curious 
 minds, captivated by the quest of the unknown, the 
 liveliest joys they can experience ; she makes them for- 
 get bitter deceptions ; she raises, she sustains them, and 
 despite the sadness of the eve and the cares of the 
 morrow, she allows them now and then to say, like the 
 Eomans of the Empire when the advent of a good 
 prince made a break in the stormy sky, "vivere luhet."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COUNTRY OF THE ^NEID. 
 
 I HAVE just read the JEneid in the country which 
 inspired it, in the very place where the events related 
 in it passed ; and in doing so I experienced the most 
 lively pleasure. Of course I do not mean to say that 
 it cannot be understood without taking this long 
 journey, and that the sight of Lavinium and Laurentum 
 is fraught with revelations as to the merits of the great 
 poem ; for this would be a ridiculous exaggeration. 
 Virgil, like Homer, belongs to the school of poets who 
 put the man first, and only consider Nature in its con- 
 nection with him. They rarely describe her for her 
 own sake, as we so willingly do nowadays. When they 
 offer us the picture of a conflagration devouring the 
 harvest, or of a torrent inundating the land, they are 
 careful to place, somewhere on a neighbouring height, a 
 husbandman or a shepherd, whose heart is wrung at 
 the sight of the disaster : 
 
 " Stu2)et inscius alto 
 Accijneno sonitum saxi de vertice pastor," 
 
 Virgil, then, is not one of those who indulge in needless 
 descriptions ; he describes places as little as possible. 
 Only, we may be sure that what he says is always 
 scrupulously true. The ancient poets love precision
 
 118 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 and fidelity ; they do not draw imaginary landscapes, 
 and usually only show us those they actually have 
 before their eyes. They paint them with one stroke, but 
 that stroke is always true, and one feels great pleasure, 
 when this is possible, in verifying its exactness. 
 
 Be assured that it is not merely an inquisitive, profit- 
 less pleasure : the study of the great writers always gains 
 by these researches. They rejuvenate and refresh our 
 admiration for them, which is at times not unnecessary. 
 The greatest peril that can menace them is only to 
 inspire in their worshippers an enthusiasm conventional 
 and made to order ; and that they may escape it, it is as 
 well now and then to change the point of view from 
 which we regard them. All that stimulates us to draw 
 nearer to them, all that puts us into direct communica- 
 tion with them, re-animates in us the feeling of their 
 true beauties. 
 
 And such is the profit I have just derived from this 
 manner of studying the ^ncid in its home. It seemed 
 to me that in reading it again by Mount Eryx or the 
 Tiber, in the forest of Laurentum, and on the heights of 
 Lavinium, the tales of Virgil became more living to 
 me, that I understood them better, and that they struck 
 me more forcibly. Although this kind of impressions 
 are of a strictly personal character, and it is not easy to 
 communicate them to the public, I will nevertheless 
 try to do so, although scarcely hoping that these studies 
 will have for others quite the same interest I felt in 
 them myself.^ 
 
 ^ In beginning this work, I must not forget that it was anticipated 
 more than eighty years ago, in a book which still enjoys a merited
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^.NEAS. ll^ 
 
 I. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 
 I. 
 
 THE LEGENDS — WHY THEY DESERVE TO BE STUDIED — THE 
 LEGEND OF iENEAS — HOW IT AROSE — ^NEAS IN THE 
 ILIAD — HOMER SUPPOSES THE RAGE OF THE ^NEIDES 
 ESTABLISHED ON MOUNT IDA — THE JOURNEYS OF 
 .ENEAS — HOW IT CAME TO BE SUPPOSED THAT HE 
 LEFT ASIA — THE WORSHIP OF APHRODITE, MOTHER OF 
 ^NEAS — GENESIS OF THE LEGEND. 
 
 It seems to me that before starting to accompany 
 yEneas on his adventures, it will not be unprofitable to 
 make ourselves acquainted with the personage, to know 
 whence he came, what was related of him, and how 
 the history of his fabulous journeys obtained credence. 
 If we would appreciate Virgil's masterpiece, and form 
 an exact estimate of the author's originality, we must 
 first ask ourselves what was furnished him by tradition, 
 and what he himself invented. It is generally affirmed 
 that the ^neid is a national poem, and that this is one 
 
 interest. M. de Bonstetten, an enlightened Swiss, who had taken part 
 in the affairs of his country during the Revolution, had travelled in 
 the north of Europe, and made a long stay in Italy, published in 1804 
 a work entitled Voyage sur la scene des six derniers livres de VEneide. 
 This book contains ingenious and correct ideas, and I have used them. 
 But politics hold a greater place in it than literature. M. Bon- 
 stetten is a man of the world, who did not pursue the study of Virgil 
 very deeply, and who went over the coast of Latium, thinking more 
 of the economical conditions of the country than of ^Eneas and his 
 companions, so I thought there was still something to be done after 
 him.
 
 120 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 of its chief merits. In order to decide liow much 
 foundation this statement has, we must find out whence 
 came the fables that tell of the establishment of the 
 Trojans in Latium, whether they sank deeply into the 
 memory of the people, and what memories the poet, in 
 relating them, awakened in those who listened ; for 
 this is the only means of knowing whether his poem 
 was ever popular. It is clear, then, that any thorough 
 study of the yEneid must begin with the examination 
 of the legend of ^neas. 
 
 The science of former times had no liking for legends. 
 When the rules of rigorous criticism are applied to 
 them, they certainly, for the most part, do not stand 
 the examination. Daunon, who in his Cou7's (VEtndes 
 historiqucs, had occasion to relate the one with which 
 we are about to busy ourselves, does so with great 
 repugnance, and feels a sort of irritation in the presence 
 of so much nonsense. It seems to him " a tissue of 
 ridiculous fictions, of romantic and incoherent fables ; " 
 and he declares that he only takes the trouble to relate 
 them in order to show their extravagance, the only 
 conclusion he draws from them being that " the histories 
 of all nations begin with puerilities." We have 
 become less severe, and these " puerilities " do not 
 seem to us deserving of so much contempt. Even 
 supposing, which is rare, that they are no aid to the 
 knowledge of the past, we remember that the legend 
 has everywhere been the first form of poetry, and this 
 is enough to entitle it to some consideration in our 
 eyes. It is rightly said that the child foreshows the 
 man ; and so a nation is already revealed in the fables 
 that cradled its youth. In order to gather exactly the
 
 THE LEGEND OF .ENEAS. 121 
 
 original qualities of its mind and natural bent of its 
 imagination, we must go back to those old, old tales 
 that were its first creation, or at least the first food of 
 its fancy. 
 
 The learned have of late years been much busied 
 with the ^nean legend. There are few since Niebuhr 
 who, in studying the past or the institutions of liome, 
 have not found it in their path and endeavoured in 
 their own manner to explain it.^ I am about to use all 
 these works in order to explain in my turn how 
 the legend seems to me to have been formed, how it 
 was introduced and spread among the Latins — in short, 
 what reasons Virgil had for making it the subject of his 
 poem. These are small problems, yet difficult to solve, 
 and despite the efforts of learned criticism, everything 
 has not yet been made clear. We cannot always hope 
 to arrive at certainty in researches of this kind, and 
 must sometimes be content with probability. Having 
 lost the ancient chroniclers who related this series of 
 fabulous events, and being obliged to reconstruct tlie 
 narrative from incomplete accounts, gaps remain 
 which it is impossible to fill up. The study of 
 legends resembles railway journeys in mountainous 
 countries, where one passes so quickly from tunnel to 
 tunnel ; light and darkness follow each other at every 
 moment. However annoying these inevitable alter- 
 nations, it seems to me much that some intermittent 
 
 ^ M. Hild, a French professor, has taken up the question again 
 in a very careful and complete memoir entitled La Legcndc d'^nee 
 avant Virgile, in which he summarises the ideas of German savants, 
 adding his own.
 
 122 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 light should have been cast upon fables so many 
 centuries old. 
 
 iEneas first appears to us in Homer's Iliad, and the 
 place he holds there has long since struck the critic. 
 The poet clearly tries to give him a great part. He 
 loads him with praises and puts him beside the bravest. 
 In council and battlefield he and Hector are the 
 first of the Trojans. The people honour him as a 
 god ; and it is he who is fetched to face the enemy in 
 perilous crises, when the body of some hero just 
 slain is to be defended, or when Achilles is to be 
 prevented from entering the walls of Troy, ^neas is 
 in no wise backward ; and, whoever the rival pitted 
 against him, throws himself resolutely into the fray. 
 His first appearance on the battle-field is terrible : 
 " He walks like a lion, confident of his strength ; he 
 holds before him his spear and his shield, which every- 
 where covers him, ready to kill whoever shall come to 
 meet him, and sending forth cries which strike 
 dismay." ^ What does him much honour and helps to 
 give a great idea of him is, that the gods who protect 
 the Greeks get frightened when they see him, and 
 tremble for the days of the enemy he is about to 
 challenge, even when that enemy is Achilles. But the 
 exploits of ^neas never last long, and he nowhere 
 fulfils the great expectation he has raised. Hardly 
 does he enter the field when he is stopped by some 
 vexatious incident. It is true, this very incident 
 redounds to his honour, for it shows how dear he is to 
 all the gods. At the first danger he runs, all Olympus 
 
 1 Iliad, V. 299.
 
 THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 123 
 
 is astir. Venus, Apollo, Mars, Neptuue, hasten to 
 his assistance; they defend him turn by turn, they 
 tend him when he is wounded, and they enclose him 
 with a protecting cloud to screen him from the hazards 
 of the fight. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, who has very delicately analysed the 
 manner in which ^neas is treated in the Iliad, and 
 makes some very ingenuous remarks on the subject, 
 points out especially the advantage which Virgil 
 afterwards drew from it in the composition of his poem. 
 " If Homer," he tells us, " had made -^neas one of his 
 heroes of the first rank, if he had caused him to 
 perform exploits equal to those of Hector and Achilles, 
 he would have left his successor nothing further to do, 
 and would have exposed him to dangerous comparisons. 
 If, on the contrary, he had made an insignificant figure 
 of him, and represented him as quite a secondary and 
 obscure personage, it would have prejudiced him, and 
 unfavourably disposed the readers of another epic ; for 
 that Virgil should have chosen one of the lesser heroes 
 of Troy to give him the first part in a new adventure 
 would have appeared unseemly. He would have been 
 blamed for wanting to make an immense oak and the 
 great founder of Eoman fortunes issue from a feeble 
 stem! But having highly extolled him without 
 making him do much, having aroused attention to him 
 without satisfying it, having everywhere announced his 
 exploits and nowhere narrated them ; it really looks 
 as if he had foreseen that this personage would be 
 the hero of a second epic poem, had held him in 
 reserve, and prepared him with his own hands for the
 
 134 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 use another poet was to make of him." ^ In reality 
 Homer could not of course foresee Virgil, and it is 
 impossible to suppose in him as much benevolence 
 towards an unknown successor ; so we must seek 
 elsewhere for the reason he may have had in giving 
 -/Eneas this attitude. This reason is not difficult to find, 
 for he has been at the pains to tell us it himself. In 
 the twentieth chapter of the Iliad, when gods and men 
 are grappling in a terrible affray, ^neas, having been 
 persuaded by Apollo to attack Achilles, is about to 
 perish. Fortunately Neptune perceives the danger he 
 is in. He addresses Juno, the great enemy of the 
 Trojans, and reminds her that it is not in the fate of 
 -^neas to fall before Troy, and that the gods preserve 
 him in order that some relics may remain of the race 
 of Dardanus. Then he adds these significant words : 
 " The family of Priam have become hateful to Jupiter, 
 and now it is the turn of valiant yEneas to reign over 
 the Trojans, as well as the children of his children who 
 shall be born in the future." ^ Here is a formal pre- 
 diction. Well, we know that although poets are 
 naturally bold, they do not, for the most part, venture 
 to predict an event with this assurance until after its 
 accomplishment. We are bound to believe, then, that 
 at the time when the Iliad was composed there was 
 somewhere a little nation who claimed to be a relic of 
 the inhabitants of Troy, and that its kings called them- 
 • selves sons of iEneas. It is in order to flatter the 
 pretensions of these princes and glorify them in tlie 
 
 ^ Sainte-Beuve, J^tude sur Virgilc, p. 127. 
 2 Iliad, XX. 20, 306.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 125 
 
 person of their great ancestor, that the poet treats him 
 with such consideration, that he presents him as a kind 
 of rival of Hector, a pretender to the throne of Ilium, 
 and heir-designate of Priam, and that, not being able 
 to celebrate his exploits, he has at least announced the 
 greatness of his race. Supposing these kings to be 
 generous, that they received epic singers well, and that 
 they granted them the same honours which Demodochus 
 receives at the table of the king of the Phaicians, it 
 will be easily understood that the rhapsodist acknow- 
 ledged this hospitality by loading the ancestor of his 
 benefactor with praises. 
 
 In these remote times, the authority of Homer was 
 admitted without dispute, and there was no other 
 history than that which he related. So, that ^neas 
 had survived the ruin of his country, was a tradition 
 accepted by all the world. Touching the manner of his 
 deliverance, very different tales were in circulation. 
 Some said that he came to an understanding with the 
 Greeks, and others that he escaped them, either on the 
 day or on the eve of the taking of Troy ; but all agreed 
 in affirming that after the disaster he gathered the 
 survivors together and settled with them somewhere in 
 the neighbourhood of Mount Ida. Such is the basis of 
 the legend. Homer shows it to us at its starting-point, 
 and although it afterwards has to suffer many changes, 
 it always keeps something of its origin. The character 
 of yEneas does not change, and it is remarkable that it 
 should, from the first moment, have taken the features 
 it was to keep to the end. With Homer, ^neas is a 
 hero, but still more a sage. He speaks wise words and 
 gives good counsels. Above all, he respects the gods.
 
 126 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Neptune, when he wishes to save him, recalls " that he 
 offers without ceasing gracious gifts to the immortal 
 gods who inhabit the vast heaven." ^ So he is their 
 favourite, and we have just seen that they are always 
 on the alert to protect him. Such are the distinctive 
 qualities of the personage ; he will not lose them either 
 in the popular tradition or in the narratives of the 
 poets, and Virgil, who has been so much abused in 
 this matter, was not free to represent him otherwise 
 than he had been made. 
 
 But the first form of the legend is about to undergo 
 a notable change. At an uncertain point of time,^ 
 while continuing to believe that ^Eneas tied at the last 
 moment from Troy, people begin no longer to admit 
 that he settled in some town of Mount Ida, to leave it 
 no more, and he is made to undertake wonderful journeys 
 in search of a new country. He leaves Ilion guided by 
 a star which his mother causes to shine in the sky for 
 his direction. Some are content to send him towards 
 neighbouring countries, and suppose him to stop at 
 the borders of Thrace at the mouth of the Hebrus, where 
 
 1 Iliad, XX. 298. 
 
 - It has hitherto been generally thought that this new form of the 
 legend first appeared in the works of Stesichorus, — that is to say, about 
 the sixth century before our era. In confirmation, the Iliac Table was 
 relied upon, a monument dating from the Roman Empire, in which all 
 the adventures of Troy, down to the settlement of jEneas in Italy, are 
 roughly portrayed in a series of bas-reliefs. It is said that the last 
 pictures, namely those dealing with the journeys of ^neas, were com- 
 posed in accordance with the narrations of Stesichorus. But M. Hild 
 thinks there are reasons for not giving too much importance to this 
 testimony. It seems to him that in these pictures the influence of 
 Sesichorus may have been modified by recollections of V^irgil.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 127 
 
 he founds the town of ^neos ; others take him a little 
 further, to Pelos, to the Adriatic, along the Gulf of 
 Ambracia. Once started, he cannot stop. He advances 
 further and further towards the " Hesperides " ; he 
 doubles the coast of Bruttium ; makes a promontory in 
 Sicily, which tradition represents as full of souvenirs of 
 the Trojans ; touches at Cumas, where he buries his 
 pilot, Misenus, on the cape which still bears his name ; 
 skirts the coast of Italy, and definitively settles in 
 Latium. This time the journeys of ^neas are over ; 
 the legend has taken its last form, and we are on the 
 road which will take us directly to the JEiieid. 
 
 "Whence comes the change which it has undergone since 
 Homer wrote ? What reason could there have been to 
 tear ^neas from the Trojan land where the Uiad shows 
 him, to take him to so many different spots ? It is 
 difficult to say with certainty, and this is just one of 
 those gaps which I just now anticipated. But if it be 
 surprising that the Homeric narrative should have been 
 thus modified, it is much more so that the Greeks 
 should have spread the legend under its new form, and 
 it is difficult to understand that they should have been 
 at pains to attribute such glorious adventures to a 
 Trojan hero. Why did they undertake to celebrate the 
 glory of an enemy, and whence the goodwill that 
 prompted them to make so fine a history of him ? It 
 may be confidently answered that none of the person- 
 ages who figure in the Iliad was a stranger to them. 
 Such was the prestige of this poem, that Greece, 
 unwilling to lose any of it, had adopted the vanquished 
 as well as the victors, and acknowledged them all more 
 or less as her children. It may also be added that
 
 128 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 among the Trojans none was less an enemy of the 
 Greeks than iEneas. Homer depicts him as greatly 
 irritated against the divine Priam, who does not honour 
 him as he deserves. So wise a man as he could not 
 mucli approve the conduct of Paris ; and according to 
 some, he always advised that Helen should he restored 
 to her husband. It is also said that, foreseeing the 
 coming ruin, he came to an agreement with the enemy, 
 and made his peace independently. Of all the Trojans 
 he was therefore the one against whom the Greeks must 
 feel the least resentment, and whose origin they could 
 most easily forgive. Yet however plausible these 
 reasons may appear, they do not prevent one from 
 feeling surprised that the Greeks should have paid 
 such honour to a companion of Hector, who had fought 
 so vigorously against Diomedes and Achilles. Had 
 they been quite free to choose the personages to whom 
 they should grant the honour of these great adventures, 
 they would doubtless have given the preference to one 
 of their own chiefs. They had one — the most glorious 
 and most beloved of all ; he, who best represented their 
 character and country, and of whom so many surprising 
 stories were already told that it would have cost little 
 to attribute a few more exploits to him. This was 
 Ulysses. He was then, if tradition may be trusted, in 
 some isle near Italy, where the enchantress Circe 
 kept him. Nothing was easier than to suppose that he 
 had passed thence into Latium, and to make him the 
 ancestor of the great Poman family. We have proof 
 that some tried to give this turn to the legend, and to 
 substitute Ulysses for yEneas. If, in spite of national 
 vanity and the attraction of a popular name, this version
 
 THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 129 
 
 did not survive ; if the Greeks accepted the other, 
 although it glorified a Trojan to the detriment of a hero 
 of their blood, we must believe that they were not free 
 to act differently, and that it was somehow or other 
 forced upon them. 
 
 There is yet another observation which one cannot 
 fail to make when reading the different accounts of 
 the journeys of ^neas. Each of these narratives 
 descriptive of his arrival in a different country supposes 
 that he stops there and leaves it no more ; and that 
 his permanent settlement may be the more certain, it 
 tells us that he died in the country, and that his 
 remains are preserved there. This multiplicity of 
 tombs, all consecrated to the same person, occasioned 
 some embarrassment to good Denys of Halicarnassus, 
 who took the whole fable seriously. It simply proves 
 that the legend was not made all at once ; that it was 
 not born entirely in the imagination of one man ; that 
 each of the excursions of ^neas formed a particular 
 and isolated narrative ; and that they were only joined 
 together to form an entire history later on. Whence 
 I conclude that if, as I have just said, the legend of 
 -^neas is not a pure fancy, a capricious invention of 
 the Greeks, but involves some circumstance inde- 
 pendent of their will, which forced it on them, as it 
 were, we must believe that this circumstance was 
 presented to them several times in succession, and in 
 different places. 
 
 Can we take another step in the midst of this dark- 
 ness ? Dare we guess what this circumstance was 
 which gave rise to the legend ? Conjectures, it may 
 well be thought, have not been wanting ; but I only 
 
 I
 
 130 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 see one that can quite satisfy us and account for all ; 
 this is the suggestion of Preller in liis Mythologic 
 Romaine} According to him, the legend arose from 
 the worship rendered by sailors to Venus, or rather 
 to the goddess Aphrodite, as the Greeks called her. 
 Aphrodite is not only the personification of beauty 
 and love ; she was born of the foam of the waves 
 and sways the sea. Lucretius, in the hymn which 
 he sings in her honour at the beginning of his poem, 
 addresses her thus : " Before thee, a goddess, the 
 winds fly away. When thou appearest the clouds 
 disperse ; the waves of the sea seem to smile, and 
 the heavens for thee are all gleaming with tenderest 
 light." 2 The Greek sailor who has put himself under 
 her protection when landing on some strange shore 
 does not fail to build a shrine to her, or at least to 
 raise her an altar. It is a witness to his gratitude 
 for the safe voyage he has made. Aphrodite and 
 ^neas are intimately bound together ; and the homage 
 rendered to the mother at once recalls the son — 
 the more so that this divine mother bears a name 
 which quite reminds one of tlie Trojan hero being 
 called the "^nean Aphrodite." ^ AVe know from Denys 
 
 ^ Preller, RomUclie MythoL, 667, d scq. 
 
 '•* Lucretius, I. 6. 
 
 3 This name of AppoSlrrj Aiuetas has been explained in various 
 ways. Some see in it, indeed, a souvenir of ^neas, and think it was 
 intended to connect the name of the son witli that of the mother, 
 while others believe it an epithet, meaning "the noble, glorious 
 Aphrodite." Herr Warner, who studied the legend of .ffineas, says in 
 an interesting memoir {Die Sage von den Wandcrungcn des u^neas, 
 Leipzig, 1882) that the worship of Astarte may possibly have pre- 
 ceded that of Aphrodite in the various countries where iEneas is
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 131 
 
 of Halicarnassus that sanctuaries of this kind were 
 very frequent on the coasts of the Mediterranean. 
 They existed at Cythera, at Zacynthus, at Lemas, and 
 at Actium, in every place where maritime commerce 
 was a little brisk, and in all of them the name of 
 -^neas was joined to that of Aphrodite. When a 
 Greek vessel touched at these shores, and the mariner 
 worshipped at the rough shrine raised by his pre- 
 decessors, could he hear names which the Iliad had 
 made familiar to him from his youth without a 
 world of mythological memories awaking in him ? As 
 it is in his nature to create fables, and his vivid 
 imagination unceasingly revives the past, he thinks 
 he perceives the exile of Troy seeking a home for his 
 banished gods. "It is doubtless here that he settled, 
 and as if to take possession of the country, he built 
 a temple to his mother." It is true that in another 
 voyage he may find elsewhere a tomb of Aphrodite like 
 the one he has just seen, and which calls up the same 
 memories in him. He will simply apply to the new 
 country what he said of the other, and affirm that this 
 time he has found the real dwelling of ..^neas. Thus, 
 little by little, the legend was formed, lengthening at 
 each voyage, ever finishing and ever beginning again, 
 until it occurred to a compiler more clever than the 
 
 supposed to have landed. The vessels of Tyre, coming before those of 
 Greece, may have left shrines there which afterwards, when the Greek 
 navigators got the upper hand, were consecrated to the Greek goddess. 
 In this case iEneas may possibly have taken the place of some 
 Phoenician hero, who was worshipped together with Astarte. This 
 hypothesis is ingenious, but in the prevailing darkness I never- 
 theless prefer not to go further back than the Greek navigators.
 
 132 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 rest to weld together all these separate narratives in 
 one whole. He took .Eneas on his departure from 
 Troy, on the day when he carried off his father and 
 his gods from his flaming home ; he made him touch 
 in turn at all the ports of the Archipelago where some 
 local tradition indicated his presence ; he then led him 
 to the shores of Sicily and Italy ; and as the town of 
 Ardea in Latium was the last spot where he raised a 
 temple to Aphrodite, he supposed this to be the end 
 of his long journey, and that the great traveller had 
 at last found that new country " which fled unceasingly 
 before him." 
 
 The legend thus related became quite different from 
 what it was in Homer. Homer shows us ^neas quietly 
 installed with his people in the neighbourhood of Troy ; 
 the new narrative presents him incurring all kinds of 
 adventures, to found at last a city as far off as Latium, 
 Nothing more contrary could therefore be imagined. 
 But scrupulous scholars were found who endeavoured 
 to arrange everything. They supposed that after sailing 
 to the Italian shores and building Lavinium, iEneas 
 left his new kingdom to his son, and returned with part 
 of his people to his residence on Mount Ida. This was 
 an ingenious way of contenting everybody; yet the 
 compromise was not favourably received, and at the 
 risk of running counter to the Iliad, ^neas was left to 
 live and die on the banks of the Tiber, where such great 
 destinies awaited his descendants.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS, 13- 
 
 II. 
 
 HOW THE LEGEND OF ^ENEAS PENETRATED INTO ITALY — 
 OPINION OF NIEBUHR — IT DOES NOT REPLACE THE 
 ITALIAN LEGENDS, BUT RATHER OVERLAPS THEM — 
 IT IS CONNECTED WITH THE ORIGIN OF LAVINIUM — 
 HYPOTHESIS OF SCHWEGLER — THE PROCESS OF ASSIMI- 
 LATION BY WHICH ^NEAS CAME TO ASSUME AN 
 ITALIAN PHYSIOGNOMY — HOW THE GREEKS COMMUNI- 
 CATED THE LEGEND TO THE ITALIANS — IN WHAT 
 MANNER IT WAS RECEIVED — THE ROMANS NOT HOSTILE 
 TO FOREIGN IDEAS AND USAGES — THE INFLUENCE OF 
 GREECE ON ROME IN EARLY TIMES. 
 
 The legend is completed ; it has taken its place among 
 the multitude of marvellous stories which feed the Greek 
 imagination. But thus far it is known to the Greeks 
 alone, and it remains for us to see how they transmitted 
 it to the Latins. "VVe must above all get to understand 
 why the Latins received it so submissively ; how it was 
 that they yielded to the imposition of unknown an- 
 cestors ; and how they consented to accept a vanquished 
 and proscribed foreigner, of whom they had heard 
 nothing, as the first author of their race. 
 
 This appears to Niebuhr to be quite inexplicable. 
 
 It does not seem to him possible " that so proud a 
 State as Eome, which despised every foreign element," 
 should have been so condescending on this occasion, 
 when it was a question of the history of its origin — 
 that is to say, of traditions which ancient peoples 
 regarded as sacred, and on which they usually based 
 their national religion. So he takes the pains to
 
 134 THE COUNTRT OF HORACE AND nUGIL. 
 
 imagine an hypothesis which will accommodate every- 
 thing. According to him, the inhabitants of Latium 
 were Pelasgians, Like the Teucrians, the Arcadians, the 
 Epirotes, the CEaotrians, etc. Early separated, estab- 
 lished in distant countries, these peoples, notwithstapd- 
 ing, never lost sight of each other. Eeligion formed a 
 bond of union between them ; they visited together the 
 Isle of Samothrace, where great mysteries were cele- 
 brated- It is here, in these friendly meetings, that the 
 legend must have arisen. It was only a more lively 
 and striking manner of expressing the relationship of 
 these different peoples, and preserving its memory. 
 To state that a chief from Troy had gone through 
 the world, leaving in certain countries a part of the 
 people who accompanied him — what is this but 
 affirming that all those who inhabit these different 
 countries sprang from the same stock, and remem- 
 bering that they are brothers ? The legend is therefore 
 natural and indigenous among them. It does not come 
 from abroad ; they created it themselves, and this alone 
 •can explain its having become popular. Such is 
 Xiebuhr's opinion, which he sets forth with profound 
 conviction, and which appears to him to be truth itself.^ 
 Unfortimately it is only a conjecture, and I think it 
 entirely lacking in probability. The little nation of 
 husbandmen and bandits who inhabited the plains of 
 Latium had neither ports nor vessels. If they had been 
 obliged to go and seek the legend in the sacred Isle of 
 Samothrace, I think they would never have known it ; 
 
 1 " The hypothesis I have just advanced is not for me a desperate 
 attempt to find some oatle: or other ; it is the result of my conviction."
 
 THE LEGEND OF .IX FAS. 1?>5 
 
 it was the legend which came and sought them out. 
 It is believed now that they held it from the Greek 
 navigators, and that it came to them along with many 
 others, which ended by modifying their religious beliefs, 
 From the moment we do not accept the hypothesis of 
 Xiebuhr, we have to solve the problem which he avoids. 
 "We have, then, to look for the reasons which permitted 
 the Latins so readily to accept the ancestors presented 
 to them by the Greeks. 
 
 I imagine, to start with, that if they did not feel 
 much enthusiasm for the legend the first time that it 
 was related to them, it did not, on the other hand, 
 inspire them with one of those repugnances which 
 habit does not overcome. This was the essential point: 
 before being accepted, it had to be listened to. It is 
 probable that it would not have been listened to, but 
 would have been rejected at once, had it pretended to 
 substitute itself for any of the ancient traditions of the 
 country. But it was not so audacious or so clumsy. 
 The Eomans related the foundation and the first years 
 of their city in a certain way. They recounted the 
 miraculous history of the twins, that of the king- 
 pontiff, that of the conqueror of Alba, etc. ^Eneas took 
 care not to meddle with Eomulus, Xuma, the kings of 
 Eome, or to appropriate their exploits. He was merely 
 made the ancestor of the first of them, and placed in 
 those remote times to which the most ancient Latin 
 traditions did not reach back. The popular traditions 
 were therefore not interfered with, and the history of 
 Ecme was only made to begin a little earlier, which 
 could not wound its pride. Thus, the new legend hav- 
 ing taken care to fix itself in a void, had sheltered itself
 
 136 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 from all objection. But it was not enough for it to be 
 listened to without ill-will ; it had to gain foothold in a 
 land where it had no roots. A legend is by its nature 
 light and volatile. If it remains in the air, it is liable 
 to be blown about by all the winds, and, after a few years, 
 to be dispersed and lost. In order to live, it must lean on 
 something lasting. Either it must be incorporated in 
 certain religious rites, and become a sort of explanation 
 of them, when the persistence of the rites preserves the 
 memory of the legendary narrative ; or it must become 
 connected with a town, and insinuate itself among the 
 fables related concerning its origin, which assures it the 
 longest duration. But with regard to Eome, there was 
 nothing to be done, the ground having been taken up long 
 since; so they contented themselves with Lavinium,and 
 ^neas passed for its founder. It remains to be seen why 
 this town was chosen in preference to others, and what 
 special facility it offered for the establishment of the 
 legend. An ingenious hypothesis of Schwegler ^ renders 
 the task easy. Lavinium was the holy city of the 
 Latins. Each town, each state, like each family, had 
 its protecting gods, which were placed in a consecrated 
 spot, and to which great homage was rendered. Those 
 of the Latins dwelt at Lavinium. This town was 
 therefore for the entire confederation what the shrine 
 of the Lares was for the house of a citizen, and the 
 Temple of Vesta and of the Penates were for Eome — 
 that is to say, the religious centre and spiritual capital 
 of the league. Schwegler concludes, from some particu- 
 
 1 In liis excellent History of Rome, which death prevented him 
 from fmuhing.
 
 THE LEGEND OF yENEAS. 137 
 
 lars furnished by the ancient scholiasts, that it was built 
 especially for the part it was destined to play, and that 
 round about the abode of the common Penates the entire 
 confederation sent a certain number of colonists, charged 
 to honour the gods of the country. It resembled one 
 of those improvised centres which formed themselves 
 in Asia Minor near the theatres and the temples where 
 the festivals of the federated cities were celebrated.^ 
 We may say, then, that it had no particular founder, 
 since it was founded by a federation of cities ; and as 
 such artificial creations do not favour the growth of 
 legends, probably none were related concerning its 
 origin, and so that of ^neas met with no competition. 
 It had the advantage of furnishing a fabulous past to a 
 city devoid of one ; why should it find a bad reception ? 
 Besides, was not so wise, so pious a hero, the son of 
 Venus, the favourite of the Olympian gods, completely 
 fitted to figure as the founder of a holy city ? 
 
 Here then is ^neas established at Lavinium as its 
 acknowledged founder. But the Latins still had among 
 them an alien by birth, and as such it was difiicult for 
 him ever to become popular in his new country. We 
 are about to see how this disadvantage, without quite 
 disappearing, which was impossible, was at least 
 mitigated in the sequel. It has been remarked that in 
 young races the memory of facts is generally more 
 
 ^ Does not the sight of these cities, founded expressly to be the 
 religious centres of confederated peoples, remind one of Washington, 
 which owes its birth to analogous reasons 1 Politics have done 
 in the United States what religion did among the confederations of 
 antiquity.
 
 138 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 tenacious than the memory of names ; that they do not 
 forget the marvellous incidents they heard related in 
 their youths, but that they seldom remember to whom 
 they were attributed ; so that these tales, gradually 
 becoming detached from the personages to whom they 
 were at first attributed, end by floating in the air, ready 
 to fall again on all who successively occupy public atten- 
 tion. Several generations of legendary heroes are thus 
 often seen to inherit the same adventures in turn. There 
 was a certain number of these roving legends among the 
 Latins, as elsewhere. These settled upon ^neas, and a 
 whole history was composed for him, of which Greece, 
 most certainly, had no idea. It was doubtless still said 
 that he came from Troy ; he was still the same wise, 
 religious hero of whom Homer had sung ; and he was 
 still represented, according to usage, bearing off his 
 father and his gods upon his shoulders, to save them 
 from the conflagration. Then comes the first serious 
 change. In the Latin legend, the gods he carries off are 
 no longer the same. The Greeks supposed him to have 
 saved the Palladium, the miraculous statue involving the 
 destinies of Troy ; the Latins substituted the Penates 
 for the Palladium. These were especially Italian gods, 
 quite peculiar to the race, and bearing its mark. All 
 the nations of antiquity imagined protecting gods of the 
 family, and made them according to their idea. Those 
 of the Romans were gods of " alimentation and nourish- 
 ment," and they received their name from the very 
 place where the household food was kept (pemis). Such 
 are the gods which the brilliant son of Aphrodite, 
 the protected of Apollo, carries away with him, and for 
 which he desires to build a city. He only builds this
 
 THE LEGEND OF yT^.NEAS. 1?>9 
 
 city in accordance with the formal behoof of Fate ; but 
 whereas among the Greeks destiny is expressed by the 
 voices of the priests of Delphi and Dodona, the Latins 
 substituted for these predictions the oracles of the 
 country, which are far from being so poetic. Thus, in 
 the new legend, Mneas is told that he will not succeed 
 in his enterprise until he has immolated the white sow 
 with her thirty little ones, and when his companions, 
 in their voracity, have devoured even their tables. 
 These are fables which, by their great simplicity, betray 
 a Latin origin, and have nothing at all in common with 
 Greece. The death of ^neas, like his life, conformed 
 to the legends of Latium ; and what is told of the old 
 kings of the country when they die is repeated of him : 
 one day he disappears and suddenly ceases to be seen 
 (non coviparuit), and it is supposed that he plunged into 
 the waters of the Numicius, a sacred river. Thenceforth 
 he is honoured as a god, by the name of the very 
 divinity in which he was lost, and is no longer called 
 ^neas, but Jwpitcr indiges. This is not how the Greeks 
 deified their heroes. They openly placed them in 
 Olympus, preserving their human features, and honour- 
 ing them by their names. But ^neas was to become 
 quite Latin ; and from the moment he touches Italian 
 soil, his new country takes possession of him. She 
 gives him adventures, she gives him a legend, she ends 
 by even taking from him the name by which Greek 
 poets sang of him. This was the only way the legend 
 could become acclimatized in the country where it was 
 to be definitely fixed. It had to assume its spirit and 
 its character, and to lose, little by little, all, whether in 
 the personage or his history, that might be repugnant
 
 140 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to the Eomans, It would, of course, be a great mistake 
 to believe that all these changes were meditated and 
 thought out ; that they were the fruit of deep combina- 
 tions. Such processes are not at all suited to primitive 
 epochs. But while admitting that, on the whole, the 
 work was done by chance and unconsciously, it is none 
 the less true that the fegend must have profited by the 
 facilities it found, and that it followed the natural 
 paths which lay before it in order to penetrate into 
 the heart of the country. Doubtless we cannot hope, 
 at this distance of time, to distinguish very exactly how 
 things happened ; yet the knowledge we possess of the 
 manners and customs of different peoples allows us to 
 form some very probable conjectures. For example, 
 it will not cost a very great effort of the imagination 
 to picture to ourselves what usually took place when 
 Greek navigators touched at these coasts six or seven 
 centuries before our era. They almost always found the 
 place taken. The Phoenicians had preceded them, and 
 had long since been masters of the commerce. But the 
 Greeks possessed advantages over them which they 
 well knew how to use. The Pha-nician was before 
 everything a greedy merchant, who only thought of 
 selling his carpets, his stuffs, and his cups of chiselled 
 metal, as dearly as possible. Of course the Greek did 
 not disdain good profits ; there never was a more heed- 
 ful and adroit merchant ; but he took with him into the 
 countries he visited something more than the products 
 of his industry. Roving the world for his pleasure, 
 almost as much as for his profit, when business was 
 over he was not always in a hurry to lock up his money 
 and be off. He was already that " little Greek " whom
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 141 
 
 the Eomans so often laughed at — supple, curious, chatty, 
 insinuating ; soon at ease in the homes of others, 
 and knowing how to make himself necessary there. 
 Like his great ancestor Ulysses, he loved, when visiting 
 cities, " to know the customs of the peoples." While 
 selling his goods, he looked and observed. Being sharp 
 and perspicacious, he was not long in remarking that 
 these peoples, whom he treated as barbarians, had beliefs 
 and usages much resembling his own. When he 
 heard them talk, he seized words and phrases that 
 recalled his own tongue. In these days such re- 
 semblances no longer surprise us ; for everybody knows 
 that all these peoples belonged to the same race of men, 
 that after living long together they separated with a 
 common stock of words and ideas, and that it is not 
 astonishing that this stock should be recognised in 
 their civilizations and their idioms. But this was un- 
 known to the Greeks and unsuspected by all around 
 them. There was only one means of explaining every- 
 thing, and they made great use of it. They supposed 
 that their ancestors, or, if not a Greek, at least one of the 
 Trojans celebrated by Homer, had been to these shores 
 and perhaps founded a colony. Henceforth there was 
 no longer room for surprise that the inhabitants of the 
 country should have retained ways of speaking and act- 
 ing which recalled Greece ; it was a heritage that had 
 come to them, without their knowledge, from these old 
 travellers. But the Greeks were not people to stop at 
 a vague hypothesis : in such fertile brains suppositions 
 soon became realities. As generally happens to the 
 self-confident, everything served to convince them of 
 the truth of their conjectures ; and the adventures of
 
 142 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the hero of Troy, of which their memory was full, 
 recurred to their thoughts a proj^os of everything. The 
 names of persons and places met with on their road 
 suggested unexpected connections to them at every 
 moment. They made their hosts talk, scarcely listened 
 to them, and always found in their narratives some 
 detail that set them thinking of their own legends. 
 Having received from heaven over and above every- 
 thing the charming gift of invention, they added much 
 to what was told them, and from all these different 
 elements, to which they gave a uniform colouring, they 
 excelled in manufacturing amusing fables, which they 
 were never tired of relating. 
 
 Let us go further. Can we, after imagining how 
 these fables must have come into being, picture to our- 
 selves the manner of their reception ? No one has told 
 us ; but there is something which brings it to our 
 knowledge more surely than if anybody had been at 
 the pains to instruct us. They were rcmemhered, and 
 those who heard them told gave them a place beside 
 their national traditions, which they sometimes sup- 
 planted. This is the victorious proof of the success 
 obtained by them. This success should not surprise 
 us. "We know a little better now in what state of 
 civilization were the nations of antiquity when the 
 Greeks began to visit them. In various parts of Italy 
 deep excavations have been made, which brought to 
 light some very ancient tombs. The objects found in 
 them are exceedingly rough. They are usually vases 
 fashioned by hand, of impure clay, imperfectly polished, 
 and with their grey or blackish surface ornamented 
 merely with lines and circles — that is to say, the first
 
 THE LEGEND OF .ENEAS. 143 
 
 decoralion men ever thought of. Evidently those who 
 used those vases and possessed no others were still 
 almost barbarians. But those barbarians were not 
 people to acquiesce in their barbarism, and they asked 
 nothing better than to leave it. The proof of this is, 
 that near this primitive pottery were found pieces of 
 amber from the North Sea, scarabei and cups brought 
 by the Phoenicians, and, in more recent tombs, cups 
 with archaic figures of Greek origin. Those people 
 then, so rough and savage in appearance, were never- 
 theless endowed with the taste for a more exalted art. 
 They did not disdain its products, but welcomed the 
 merchants who introduced it to them, and probably 
 paid them highly. 
 
 This characteristic is striking among the most ancient 
 Romans. As we have just seen, Niebuhr states that 
 Eome in her pride " despised all foreign elements." 
 The truth is just the contrary. She doubtless had a 
 great opinion of herself, and early foresaw the part she 
 was to play in the world ; but this legitimate pride 
 never degenerated into ridiculous vanity. She did not 
 despise her enemies even after they were vanquished, 
 knew how to acknowledge what was good in them, and 
 when necessary she appropriated it, " Our ancestors," 
 said Sallust, " were people as wise as bold. Pride did 
 not prevent them from borrowing the institutions of 
 their neighbours when they saw any profit in them. 
 Their arms are those of the Samnites, and to the 
 Etruscans they owe the insignia of their magistrates. 
 Whenever they found among their allies or their 
 enemies anything worth taking, they sought to intro- 
 duce it among themselves. They preferred rather to
 
 144 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 imitate others than to envy them." ^ This is the true 
 character of the people. If they sometimes appear 
 vainly self-complacent, and impertinently disdainful 
 of the foreigner, it is mere comedy. The attitude a 
 Eoman thinks himself obliged to assume in public, the 
 way he talks when others are listening, his manner of 
 acting when looked at, are not always in conformity 
 with his true sentiments. This is remarked in his 
 dealings with the Greeks. He doubtless affects to 
 laugh at them in public, but he cannot do without 
 them ; and we may be certain that the very first day 
 he saw them he submitted, without being able to help 
 himself, to the ascendency of that witty and insinuating 
 race who brought him such beautiful works and told 
 him such good stories. 
 
 When speaking of the introduction of Greek civiliza- 
 tion into Eome, the mind is generally carried back to a 
 precise date, and thinks of the day in the year 514 B.C., 
 when a captive of Tarentum caused a regular drama 
 imitated from the masterpieces of Greece to be played 
 in a theatre which had hitherto only been used for 
 Etruscan dancers and Italian buffoons. It is, in truth, 
 a decisive moment in the history of Eome. That day 
 the door was for the first time flung wide open to 
 Greek literature, and by the way which had been thus 
 prepared for her, she soon passed bodily through. But 
 when this species of coup d'etat took place, Greece had 
 long since gradually and noiselessly penetrated Eome, 
 and what she had done in those few centuries was more 
 important than what remained to be accomplished. To 
 
 ^ Catiline, 51. 
 
 I
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 145 
 
 give Rome a literature was doubtless a great under- 
 taking ; but was it not a much graver one yet to modify 
 the manners of the city, and by a secret and continuous 
 process to introduce a new spirit into it ? She gained 
 this result in that first intercourse of which history has 
 not preserved the memory. Above all, the national 
 religion came out quite changed. We know what was 
 the essential character of the old Eoman religion. The 
 gods it honoured had scarcely taken human form ; they 
 still lacked individuality and life, and behind them 
 were seen the forces and phenomena of the nature they 
 faintly personified. It is from Greece that the Eomans 
 learned to make entirely animate beings of them, to 
 give them passions, and to attribute adventures to 
 them. They doubtless went about it in earnest. Prof. 
 Hild bids us remark that those vague divinities, which 
 a father of the Church calls " incorporeal and intangible 
 shadows," offered but meagre food to the imagination of 
 the crowd. Having once beheld the living figures of 
 the Hellenic Pantheon, it would have no others. Thus 
 was introduced into Pome the Greek mythology, which, 
 in creating a history for all these stiff and inanimate 
 gods, gave them life ; and thus was established the 
 worship of the heroes, sons of the gods, a sort of inter- 
 mediate being between divinity and manhood, from 
 which the poetry of the Greeks had drawn such great 
 advantages. jiEneas entered with the others, and, like 
 them, met with a good reception.
 
 146 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 III. 
 
 AT WHAT MOMENT DID THE LEGEND FIRST BECOME 
 KNOWN TO THK ROMANS ? — IT IS FIRST MENTIONED 
 AT THE TIME OF THE WAR WTIII PYRRHUS — THE 
 IMPORTANCE IT TAKES AFTER THE PUNIC WARS — THE 
 LEGEND AMONG THE POETS, NyEVIUS — THE LEGEND 
 AMONG THE HISTORIANS AND SCHOLIASTS, CATO, 
 VARRO— THE LEGEND AMONG THE ARTISTS— AVHY 
 WAS IT MORE SPREAD AMONG THE ROMANS THAN 
 AMONG THE GREEKS ? 
 
 Only one point remains to be cleared up ; but it is 
 perhaps the most obscure. Can we ascertain at what 
 moment the legend of vEneas became known among the 
 Romans ? We do not hope to attain to a precise date, 
 as may well be imagined. We must not be exacting, 
 but content ourselves with little, when so distant an 
 age is in question. 
 
 First of all, it is indisputable that the first inter- 
 course of the Romans with the Greeks goes back very 
 far. It is no longer a matter of doubt that they 
 received the art of writing from them ; for in the most 
 ancient Latin inscrij)tions the form of the letters is 
 that of the Eolo-Dorian alphabet. This alphabet was 
 doubtless communicated to them by one of the Greek 
 colonies established in Soutliern Italy or in Sicily. It 
 probably came to them from Cumea, whose vessels did 
 a great trade along the Italian coasts. But when did 
 they begin to use it ? When the ideas of Niebuhr 
 upon the beginnings of Roman history were dominant,
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^KEAS. 147 
 
 it was customary to make this epoch as late as possible, 
 in order to leave the field the longer free for the 
 formation of primitive epics, and it was even asserted 
 that the Eomans did not learn to write until the time of 
 the Decemvirs. These are ideas which have now 
 been exploded. It is certain that writing was known 
 to the Eomans at a very early date, and in a recent 
 publication M. Louis Havet has tried to show that 
 their alphabet was fixed before the time of the 
 Tarquins.^ We must admit, then, that the Greeks 
 frequented the markets of Eome from the day of its 
 foundation. This opinion, a prediction of philology, 
 has been confirmed by the archaeologist. In the 
 excavations made on the Viminal, tombs were reached 
 under what is called the Wall of Servius, and 
 which must consequently be more ancient. These 
 tombs contained, among other objects, Chalcidian 
 vases, which doubtless came by way of Cumea. From 
 the moment the Greeks knew the road to Eome, they 
 
 ^ See M. L. Havet's opening lecture at the College de France, 7th 
 December 1882. The consequences of the fact pointed out by them do 
 not lack importance, and he does not shrink from them. After estab- 
 lishing the fact that writing was known in the time of the Eoman kings, 
 he adds : " But," it will be asked, " did those old kings really exist ? " 
 And why not ? If the Eomans could write at that time, why should 
 they not have transmitted a few authentic names to posterity ? It is 
 very remarkable that with regard to these facts, formerly so much 
 contested, French, Italian, and even German criticism seems to have 
 become conservative again. At the same time that M. L. Havet's 
 pamphlet appeared, M. Gaston Faiis published in the Ilomania a very 
 important ai-ticle on the legend of Roncevaux. This article ends with 
 the following words: "While following up these studies of critical 
 analysis, now only in their beginning, we shall become more and more 
 convinced that in being distant and anonymous the epic is not 
 differently circumstanced than other births of human poetic activity ;
 
 148 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 brought the products of their industry thither, and with 
 them their ideas, their civilization, and their legends. 
 But must we believe that the legend of ^neas was 
 already among them ? Upon this point the learned are 
 divided, and the most opposite opinions are offered. 
 While some believe it to be as ancient as Eome herself, 
 others will not admit it to be anterior to the Punic 
 Wars. On which side does the truth seem to be ? 
 
 To those who would take it back to the very 
 beginning of Eome, it has been rightly replied that, had 
 it existed at the time when the Eoman religion was 
 formed, it would hold some place in it.^ Denys of 
 Halicarnassus, in expounding it, says " that it is con- 
 firmed by what takes place in the sacrifices and 
 ceremonies " ; but he must have been mistaken. The 
 most ancient festivals of Eome are known to us, and 
 Prof. Mommsen thinks we can reconstruct the calendar 
 of Numa. There is no mention of J^neas in it. He is 
 first heard of in history in connection with Pyrrhus. 
 
 that it is only developed by a series of individual innovations, doubtless 
 marked in the corners of their respective epochs ; and which have 
 nothing unconscious or populai' in the almost mystic sense sometimes 
 attached to the word. Everything here, as elsewhere, has its explana- 
 tion, its cause, its reason to be and to cease." Here we'are, then, very 
 far from the assertions which made the glory of Wolff, Lachmann, and 
 Niebuhr. It is curious to realise, just at the end of this century, that 
 after having run through a whole cycle of seductive hypotheses, and 
 of audacious destructions and reconstructions, the evolution is finished, 
 and brings us back very nearly to the point of departure. But we 
 return to it with more exact ideas, and with a clearer view of the past ; 
 and if all those great systems which reigned for a few years were only 
 errors, they were at least fertile errors, which have renewed criticism 
 and history. 
 
 ' Aniiq, rom., I. 49.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 149 
 
 We are told that the king of Epirus was induced to 
 declare war against the Eomans by the memory of his 
 ancestor Achilles, there being a family quarrel between 
 him and the Trojans of Rome, which he desired to 
 settle.^ So the legend existed at that time, and a 
 contemporary historian, Timteus of Tauromenium, tells 
 it nearly in the same way that it is known to us. Is it 
 probable that it was quite recent at this moment, or 
 that the war with Pyrrhus gave rise to it ? I find it 
 difficult to believe. Prof. Hild is right in saying " that 
 a belief or a worship is never implanted all at once by 
 hasty adoption or violent annexation." It must then 
 have been working its way, and insinuating itself into 
 Rome for some time past; but it only began to 
 assume a certain authority there shortly before the war 
 with Pyrrhus. What also leads me to the same con- 
 clusion is, that about this time I see it accepted in an 
 official manner by the Roman authorities. When a 
 State is wise, it does not give in too soon to contested 
 novelties ; and in order that a sort of public consecra- 
 tion should have been accorded to the legend of .^neas 
 at Rome, it must have been pretty widely spread at the 
 time and accepted by many people. In 472, according 
 to Prof. Mommsen, and, according to Nissen,^ fifty 
 years later, the Acarnanians being engaged in a struggle 
 with the ^tolians, asked Rome to help them. Their 
 ground of appeal was that of all the Greeks their 
 
 'This is at least what Pausanias says, although his sources are 
 not known. 
 
 ^'SisscTi, Zur Kriiik des ^-Eiieassage {Jahrb. fur class. Phil.), 1S65, 
 p. 375, et seq.
 
 150 THE COtrNTRV OF HORACE AND VIRGIL 
 
 ancestors aloue had taken no part in the Trojan War. 
 They doubtless thought that this motive would suffice 
 to soften the Senate, and that the heirs of the Trojans 
 would not decline to pay their ancestors' debt. From 
 that time texts abound to prove that belief in a Trojan 
 origin had become among the Romans a maxim of State, 
 alleged without hesitation, even in diplomatic docu- 
 ments. When, after the disasters of the Second Punic 
 War, Rome asked the inhabitants of Pessinoute to let 
 them have the statue of the Mother of the Gods which 
 was to restore their fortunes, she did not forget to 
 remind them that her ancestors were Phrygians by 
 birth, and, consequently, their countrymen. A little 
 later, in treating with Antiochus, king of Syria, whom 
 she had vanquished, she takes care to stipulate that he 
 shall set free the inhabitants of Ilion, who are related 
 to the Roman peo|jle. During the wars in Asia, the 
 generals who passed by the ancient town, are careful to 
 stop there and make sacrifices, ^neas, thenceforth, 
 has taken his place among the ancestors of the Romans; 
 he figures at the head of the list, and public honours 
 are rendered to him. In the Forum of Pompeii, along a 
 monument which ornaments one side of the square, four 
 niches are distinguished, which used to contain statues, 
 now destroyed, ^neas and Romulus occupied the two 
 first ; while Signer Fiorelli supposes the two others 
 to have contained Casar and Augustus. These were 
 the four founders of the Roman State. Some fragments 
 of the inscription graven below the image of ^neas 
 still remain. They recall all the legend in a few words : 
 the flight of the hero carrying with him his gods and 
 his father; his arrival in Italy; the foundation of
 
 THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 151 
 
 Lavininm ; his miraculous death ; and his apotheosis as 
 Jupiter Indigos.^ 
 
 Latin poetry also takes early possession of ^neas. 
 "We know that he figured in the first orational epic 
 Eome possessed. When the rough plebeian Ncevius, so 
 ardent for the glory of his country, undertook to sing 
 the First Punic War, in which he had been a soldier, he 
 began by going back to the Trojans. At this moment 
 the history of ^neas is enriched by a new incident on 
 which Virgil was afterwards to shed an immortal 
 brightness. N?evius imagines -^neas to have been 
 driven by the wind from Troy to Carthage, where he 
 was received by Dido. He was not, I think, the first 
 to bring together these representatives of two races, and 
 this is how they come to be connected On the western 
 coast of Sicily, on the summit of Mount Eryx, there 
 rose one of these temples of Aphrodite to which allusion 
 has already been made. The position of Eryx between 
 Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Italy, made it one of the spots 
 where merchants of all countries came together. The 
 Phoenician was constantly meeting the Greek there. 
 Each of the two peoples brought with it its national 
 traditions, and in their reciprocal communications, when 
 one told the story of yEneas, the other replied with that 
 of Dido. And so by dint of talking about them, they 
 came to join them in the same legend. Allied together 
 so long as their nations were united, they became 
 
 ^ It is true that among the paintings at Pompeii there exists one 
 which is a kind of parody of the official legend. It represents a 
 monkey, clad in a coat of mail, carrying an old monkey on his shoulders 
 and dragging a young monkey by the hand. iEneas, Anchises, 
 and Ascanius are meant.
 
 152 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 mortal enemies as soon as the war broke out between 
 Carthage and Eome. Then the hatred of the children 
 is made to go back to that of the ancestors, and the 
 meeting of the queen of Carthage with the Trojan hero 
 takes tragic colours. It is doubtless Nsevius who gave 
 this new character to the ancient legend. To account 
 for the animosity of the two races, he supposes that 
 they had ancient grudges to avenge, and that their 
 enmity began with their very existence. Ennius also 
 thinks he must take up Eoman history at the fall of 
 Troy, as is seen in the short fragments of the First Book 
 of his poem whicli remain to us. We have especially 
 the verse in which he begins to relate the adventures 
 of -^neas : 
 
 ^\Cum veter occuhuit Priamus sub marie Pelasgo." 
 
 The remainder took up very little place, and half a 
 Book sufficed Ennius for the narration of what occupies 
 twelve in Virgil. The malicious said that while laugh- 
 ing at his predecessor Na3vius, whom he accused of 
 writing in a barbarous rhythm and having no care for 
 elegance, he avoided repeating what the rough poet 
 had done, in order not to clash with him, and that he 
 was like certain heroes of Homer, who shout all kinds 
 of nonsense to their enemy, and let fly an arrow or two 
 from afar, but withdraw as soon as he advances. How- 
 ever this may be, it is curious to remark that the first 
 time the Latin Muse tackles the epic, she goes straight 
 to the subject which Virgil was to handle. Is it not to 
 the point here to recall Sainte Beuve's remark with 
 reference to Homer ? He says there was a sort of 
 unconscious conspiracy among all these ancient writers
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 153 
 
 to prepare the matter on which their illustrious 
 successor was afterwards to work. 
 
 From the hands of the poets the legend fell into that 
 of the chroniclers and scholiasts. It had no reason to 
 rejoice thereat. The moment that the learned seize 
 upon these old legends, and undertake to make them 
 clearer and wiser, is a crisis for them. The learned are 
 not light-handed. They want everything to be rational 
 and sensible, which is surely a most legitimate desire ; 
 yet, somehow or other, from the moment you try to put 
 reason into popular fables, and take too much trouble 
 to make them probable, they become ridiculous. Virgil 
 had afterwards much ado to restore to his hero the 
 poetic tinge of which his prolonged sojourn among 
 scholiasts and chroniclers had deprived him. Yet 
 they rendered him a signal service, since their minute 
 researches and learned labours contributed to establish 
 the authority of the legend more solidly. So long as it 
 was only found in the verses of the poets, it might be 
 suspected of having no other foundation than those 
 thousand Greek fables which no one took in earnest. 
 But from the moment serious people, who did not make 
 it their trade to amuse the public, took the trouble to 
 busy themselves with it, in books where they studied 
 the laws and religion of their country, it seemed to 
 deserve more confidence. Cato, a consul, a censor, an 
 enemy of the Greeks, related it without hesitation in all 
 its details, and did not hesitate to give, respecting the 
 exact extent of the territory ceded by Turnus to the 
 Trojans, and the different struggles which ^neas and 
 Ascanius sustained against Turnus, details as precise as 
 if contemporary events had been in question. Varro,
 
 154 THE COUNTRY OF HOMCE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 " the most learned of the Eomans," who was a man of 
 war as well as a scholar, and commanded the fleet 
 of the Adriatic while Pompey was tracking the pirates, 
 profited by a little leisure to follow up /Eneas, do his 
 journeys over again, and visit with his galleys the 
 different ports at which he had touched. He was so 
 convinced of the reality of his adventures that he 
 thought he found indisputable traces of his sojourn 
 everywhere. We see in the fragments of his works 
 still extant that he speaks of these distant events in a 
 tone of extraordinary assurance. " Is it not certain," 
 he says, " that the Arcadians, under the leadership of 
 Evander, came into Italy, and settled on the Palatine ? " ^ 
 It seems really a crime to doubt it. 
 
 I know that to these reasons, which induced us to 
 believe that the legend was then very widely spread and 
 generally believed in, it has been objected that it was 
 utterly unknown to Eoman Art. How is it possible to 
 admit that, being so popular as is asserted, it so rarely 
 tempted sculptors and painters ? It is certain that no 
 fresco or bas-relief of any importance is known anterior 
 to the Empire, having the history of iEneas for its 
 subject. M. Brunn thought he had found one on one 
 of those metal coffers called cists, which come to us 
 from the tombs of Pneneste. He fancied that he 
 recognised on one of the sides the battles of the Eutuli 
 and the Trojans, while on the plaque in the cover he 
 saw ^Eneas presenting the old Latin king with the spoils 
 of Turnus whom he has just killed. Beside him is 
 Lavinia, who is about to be delivered to her husband, 
 
 ^ Severus, in ^n., VIII. 51.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 155 
 
 while Amata, her mother, retires, furious, in order not 
 to witness this marriage.^ This is quite the subject of 
 the ^7ieid, and, as M. Brunn supposes this work of art 
 to be anterior to the First Punic War, he admits that the 
 legend was then fixed in its most minute details, and 
 that Virgil only translated faithfully the popular fables 
 which existed more than two centuries before his time. 
 Unfortunately, M. Brunn's explanation is now strongly 
 contested, and it is questioned whether the coffer does 
 not belong to a more recent epoch, or whether the 
 subject represented is really what M. Brunn imagines 
 it to be. But on the other hand, since the time when 
 M. Brunn, erroneously or not, placed the adventures of 
 ^neas on the cista prmnestina, they have been found, 
 and this time indubitably, in a Eoman tomb. In 1875 
 excavations were undertaken by an Italian Society at 
 the extremity of the Esquiline, in the space extending 
 between Santa Maria Maggiore and the little monument 
 known as the Temple of Minerva Medica. Here lay 
 one of the important roads of Eome — that leading to 
 Praeneste. Along the Koman roads one is always sure 
 to find tombs. One of those excavated contained 
 frescoes which had unfortunately suffered much when, 
 in the third century, the custom of burying the dead 
 having replaced that of burning them, alterations were 
 made to the tomb in order to adapt it to this new 
 practice. However, enough remains of the paintings 
 to enable one to grasp their subject quite clearly. It is 
 the early history of Ptome from the arrival of ^ueas 
 in Italy. We first see him founding Lavinium and 
 
 ^ Ann. de I'Inst. de corrcsp. arch., 1864, p. 356, et seq.
 
 156 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 lighting Turniis. In the pictures, which follow each 
 other without being separated, like those on the column 
 of Trajan, all the phases of the great battle fought on 
 the banks of the Numicius can be followed. Then 
 comes the foundation of Alba by Ascanius, and lastly, 
 the story of Ehea Silvia and the twins.^ What adds 
 value to these paintings is that they must be con- 
 temporary with Virgil's works, and as they do not 
 reproduce exactly the tradition followed by him, and 
 were probably not executed under his influence, they 
 show how the events sung by the poet were understood 
 by people round about him. But whatever importance 
 may be attached to them, it must not be forgotten that 
 they are the only work of art of any value anterior to 
 the ^neid treating of ^neas and Lavinium ; and it 
 must therefore be owned that down to the time of 
 Virgil, the journeys of the Trojan hero, which had 
 inspired so many poets, had busied sculptors and 
 painters but little. 
 
 Does this justify us in stating that the legend 
 was but little known at that time ? I do not think 
 so. Let us remember that the arts were in the hands 
 of the Greeks, and that the Greeks only liked to busy 
 themselves with themselves. It has been remarked 
 that they hardly ever reproduced events of Eoman 
 history in bas-reliefs or frescoes. It is true that having 
 created the .^nean legend, as we have seen, they might 
 have been expected to feel more taste for the work ; but 
 
 ^ This monument was first described by M. Brizio in his work 
 entitled Pitture e sepolcriscopcrti sulV Esquilino. The subject was treated 
 afresh by M. Robert in the Annales de Vlnstitut ax:h6ologiqtie de Rome 
 (1878, p. 234, ct scq.). I have followed M. Robert's explanations.
 
 THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 157 
 
 unfortunately this legend had come into existence but 
 recently, when their imagination was beginning to tire 
 of reproducing fables. Besides, it is obviously less rich 
 in poetic details, more sombre and dry than others. 
 Nor had it enjoyed the good fortune to please a great 
 poet, and be transfigured in his song. These were 
 depreciating circumstances which little recommended 
 it to the choice of artists. In conclusion, they had a 
 special reason for forsaking it, on which I must for a 
 moment dwell ; because in teaching us why it was 
 neglected by the Greeks, it at the same time shows us 
 one of the reasons, and perhaps the strongest, which 
 attracted the Eomans to it. 
 
 "When the legend of ^neas began to spread among 
 the Greeks, Eome, too feeble as yet to cause them un- 
 easiness, was yet powerful enough to inspire them with 
 a desire to attach her in some way or other to their 
 country, and thus take part in her glory. A century 
 later all was changed. She had subdued Greece, she 
 had just invaded the East, and she openly coveted tk ? 
 empire of the world. The Greeks, vanquished and 
 humiliated, no longer felt the same alacrity to adorn 
 with poetic fables the origin of a people who 
 oppressed them. This legend — although their own 
 work — seemed to give their rivals a too advantageous 
 past. They began by speaking less and less of it, and 
 ended by forgetting it. Denys of Halicarnassus states 
 that in his time there was hardly anybody left in 
 Greece to whom it was known. Its place had been 
 taken by quite contrary fables. There existed then, at 
 the courts of the little Asiatic princes and of the bar- 
 barian kings, quite a school of historians who made it
 
 158 THP! COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 their business to say as much ill as possible of the 
 Eomans, and as much good as possible of their enemies. 
 They naturally shared the fate of those whose cause 
 they championed, and it is conceivable that the con- 
 queror whom they insulted should not have been soli- 
 citous to preserve their works. We possess Polybius, 
 who wrote the history of the Punic Wars in the Eoman 
 interest; but we scarcely know the name of that 
 Philinus of Agrigentum who extolled the Carthaginians, 
 and turned everything to their glory. The usual tactics 
 of all these enemies of Eome consisted in ridiculing 
 the baseness of her origin. They said that she 
 had been an asylum for bandits ; that she owed her 
 birth to wretches, vagabonds, and slaves. These cal- 
 umnies made Halicarnassus indignant, and he under- 
 took to reply to them by writing his homan Antiquities. 
 In order to show their falseness and victoriously refute 
 them, he related the legend of ^neas in all its details. 
 Addressing his countrymen at the commencement of 
 his book, he says : " Trust not at all those lies (with 
 regard to the foundation of Eome) ; they only spread 
 fables. I will show you that those who founded her 
 were not vagabonds snatched by chance from among 
 the most contemptible nations. They were Trojans, 
 following a famous chief, whose deeds were sung by 
 Homer. Or rather, since the Trojans are of the same 
 origin as we, they were Greeks." ^ 
 
 Denys well knew that this conclusion was quite to 
 the taste of the Eomans, and that it flattered the secret 
 
 ^ All these ideas are developed in the Preface to the Eoman Anti- 
 ijuiiics of Denj's of Halicarnassus,
 
 THE LEGEND OF .TINEAS. 159 
 
 instincts of their vanity. They had long borne without 
 loss of temper the stigma of " barbarians," which the 
 Greeks gave to all who were not of their race. When 
 they better understood the worth of letters and 
 of arts, they disliked to be put thus summarily and 
 with a word beyond the pale of civilization. They 
 wished to re-enter humanity, and in some way connect 
 themselves with Greece, if only by their distant origin. 
 The legend of ^neas gave them the means, and they 
 grasped it with alacrity. The great lords delighted to 
 imagine themselves descended from the most illustrious 
 companions of ^neas; and there was even a certain num- 
 ber of families for whom this origin was not contested. 
 These were called " Trojan families "; and Varro, desirous 
 to please everybody, wrote a book in support of their 
 chimerical genealogies. Simple citizens could not have 
 such exalted pretensions ; yet though they did not dare 
 to claim the honour of having Trojan chiefs among their 
 ancestors, they were still proud to be descended from 
 common soldiers. In the famous prediction announc- 
 ing the disaster of Cannte, the soothsayer Marcius, 
 addressing the Eomans, called them " children of 
 Troy" {Trojugena Bomance)} In giving them this 
 name he evidently meant to please them. A little 
 later the poet Attius, having composed a national 
 piece on the devotion of Decius, of which the Eomans 
 were so proud, entitled it The Sons of ^neas or 
 Decius (^neadce sive Decius). Writers of tragedy or 
 comedy generally seek to give to their works titles 
 attractive to the public. Attius, then, supposed that 
 
 * Titus Livius, XXV. 12,
 
 160 THE COUNTPtY OF HOKACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the Eomans would like to hear themselves called sons 
 of ^neas. And thus the general vanity became a 
 factor in the success of the old legend. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHAT REASON HAD VIRGIL TO CHOOSE THE LEGEND OF 
 ^NEAS FOR THE SUBJECT OF HIS POEM ? — THE HIS- 
 TORICAL EPIC AND THE MYTHOLOGICAL EPIC — THE 
 JENEIB IS BOTH A MYTHOLOGICAL AND AN HIS- 
 TORICAL EPIC — WHY DID VIRGIL PREFER ^ENEAS TO 
 ROMULUS ? — IN WHAT SENSE MAY THE MNEID BE 
 SAID TO HAVE BEEN POPULAR ? 
 
 We at length bid adieu to darkness and uncertainties, 
 and emerge into full light: we have reached Virgil. 
 After having sought to discover whence the legend of 
 ^neas came, what were the elements that formed it, 
 and why the Eomans received it so favourably, it re- 
 mains for us to ascertain the reasons that may have 
 induced Virgil to make it the subject of his poem. 
 
 We run no risk of committing an error when we 
 assert that he did not do so without reason, and that, 
 in the conception of his works, he left nothing to 
 chance. Voltaire relates that when, at the age of 
 twenty, he took it into his head to compose an epic, 
 he scarcely knew what an epic was. Virgil would not 
 have displayed such levity. He was not one of those 
 poets of impulse of whom Plato tells us that they do 
 not know what they are about. He meditated and 
 reflected long before writing. He was a sad and timid 
 man, and had not a sufficiently good opinion of
 
 THE LEGEND OF /EJJEAS. l61 
 
 himself to think he was capable of improvising 
 masterpieces. All his works bear traces of patient 
 labour and obstinate effort. The wonder is that in his 
 case toil never hampered inspiration. 
 
 We may be certain that after deciding to write an 
 epic poem, he first of all asked himself what the subject 
 of this poem was to be. The reply to this question 
 would be different, according to the school the poet 
 belonged to. There were two at the time disputing 
 and dividing public suffrage. The one clung to the 
 past, and wished simply to continue it. It was com- 
 posed of admirers of the old Latin poets, and counted 
 especially among its ranks those wise and ripened minds 
 to whom innovations are unpleasing. The other had 
 chosen new models, and professed to rejuvenate poetry 
 by imitating the younger poets. As always happens, 
 these had the young people and the women on their 
 side. Each of the two schools looked upon the epic 
 differently. The old school was especially partial to 
 the historical poem — that is to say, the poem which 
 relates the deeds of our ancestors ; and it must be 
 owned that its taste was in conformity with the 
 peculiar genius and natural aptitudes of the Eoman 
 race. This race was, above all, military and practical, 
 and only loved literature on condition of its containing 
 lessons for the conduct of life. The ideal and fanciful, 
 by which the Greeks were moved^ left it somewhat 
 indifferent. It had little inclination for legends in 
 which imagination has so great a place, and the 
 poetry of its preference was that dealing with real 
 facts and personages. So the Latin poets, as soon 
 as their wings had strength to bear them, turned 
 
 L
 
 162 TliE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VlRGlL. 
 
 in that direction. Nrevius sings the First Punic 
 War; while Ennins, giving his work the very Iloman 
 title of the Annales, relates all the history of Home, 
 emphasizing the events he has himself seen, and can 
 speak of as a witness. The success of his work was 
 very marked. Rome recognises herself, and for a 
 century epic-makers followed in his tracks. Even in 
 Virgil's time, and round about him, poems were com- 
 posed on the defeat of Vercingetorix and the death of 
 CtBsar. Lucretius, the greatest poet of the age, also 
 holds to the author of the Annales, and although he 
 did not write an epic tale, he proclaims liimself the 
 disciple of Ennius, and congratulates him on having 
 brought from Helicon "a crown whose laurel leaves 
 shall never fade." The other school sought its inspira- 
 tions among the Alexandrian poets. In spite of the 
 reputation they enjoyed in the Greek world, Eome had 
 remained long without knowing and applying them. 
 She liked to keep to the classic epoch ; but when her 
 conquests had brought her into more frequent contact 
 with Asia, her generals, her proconsuls, her merchants, 
 who frequently visited the large towns, read these 
 poets with whom everybody around them busied them- 
 selves, and were charmed. They did not find it 
 difficult to communicate their feelings to their friends ; 
 for there was then at Eome a polite and refined society 
 which was beginning to tire a little of the old writers 
 and to seek new objects for admiration. These grace- 
 ful and delicate works, where care for form is pushed 
 so far; where so many learned allusions, so many 
 surprises of expression and imagery are found ; where 
 the mode of speech is so ingenious that it stimulates
 
 THE LEGEND OF /ENEAS. 163 
 
 the mind and makes it pleased with itself when 
 it has grasped its retinements, were well made to 
 captivate. Naturally, after admiring, Rome imitated. 
 The first to write verses in the Alexandrian style 
 were at the same time young men of talent and heroes 
 of fashion — Licinius Calvus, Cornelius G alius, and 
 above all, Catullus, the greatest among them. They 
 obtained much success. One of their usual methods 
 was the frequent employment of mythology. Some were 
 content to make use of it in short allusions in their 
 elegies, while others spread it out in epic poems. The 
 histories of the gods and the heroes, the adventures of 
 Hercules and Theseus, the war of Thebes or that of 
 Troy, the conquest of the Golden Fleece, furnished 
 them in abundance epic subjects, which they preferred 
 to all others. 
 
 Between these two schools Virgil had to choose. 
 Each had its merits and its advantages. The historical 
 poem, preferred by the old school, most pleased 
 the greater number, and had the better chance of 
 becoming popular. Rome was always proud of her 
 past, and she lent a willing ear to those who celebrated 
 her glory. But this style also presents great diffi- 
 culties of execution. It is always awkward for Poetry 
 to have to compete with Histor}*. If she reproduces 
 facts exactly as they have happened, she is accused 
 of sinking into dryness, and being nothing but a 
 chronicle ; if she attempts to mingle a little fiction 
 with it, serious people find that the truth prejudices 
 the fable, while the fable discredits the truth ; that 
 one does not know on what ground one is walking, 
 and that this uncertainty spoils all the pleasure of the
 
 164 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 work. The mythological epic is not exposed to this 
 danger. All in it is of the same nature, and from 
 the first verse it introduces the reader into a world 
 of fancy and invention which he leaves no more. 
 The genre once accepted, the mind is at rest, and 
 does not experience the unpleasantness of being hauled 
 backwards and forwards between fiction and reality. 
 It is a kind of dream, to which it can confidently 
 abandon itself; and it is at least sure of following it 
 to the end without any rough incident coming to 
 dissipate it. But, on the other hand, the public to 
 which this kind of poetry appeals is limited, since 
 it does not possess what attracts the crowd. In order 
 to understand it one must have the delicacy of an 
 artist and the learning of a scholar. Above all, at 
 Rome, where artists and learned men were rare, it 
 would have to resign itself to the indifference of 
 " the profane vulgar," and be the charm of a few 
 refined natures. Virgil did not servilely adhere to any 
 school, and in this he shows his originality ; his taste, 
 broad and free, sought its inspirations everywhere. 
 He began by a liking for Theocritus, an Alexandrian, 
 while in his last work he so closely imitated the 
 ancients tliat Seneca calls him an Ennianist down- 
 right, which in his mouth is a grave reproach. In 
 order to create the language, at once so firm and 
 supple, which he used with such admirable effect, he 
 did not scruple to join together the two great repre- 
 sentatives of the opposed schools, Lucretius and 
 Catullus. From the one he borrowed more especially 
 the vivacity of his turns, and the energy and brilliancy 
 of his expressions, while from the other he took his
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 165 
 
 neater phrasing, and his easier, more flowing rhythm. 
 From this combination arose that marvellous poetic 
 language which Eorae spoke without much change 
 until the end of the Empire. 
 
 The same mind is found again in Virgil's choice of 
 a subject. It is of a kind to satisfy everbody, and 
 holds a middle place between the historical and the 
 mythological epic. It has been supposed, with 
 sufficient probability, that he hesitated some time 
 before deciding. We know that when he finished his 
 Georgics, he read them to the Emperor in the retreat at 
 Atella, whither Augustus had gone to take a little rest 
 and nvirse his throat complaint. Was it on this 
 occasion that he composed the brilliant prologue with 
 which the Third Book opens ? It is natural to believe 
 so. In this prologue he announces the ^neid ; but it 
 has obviously not yet taken in his mind its definitive 
 form. At this moment he seems quite disgusted with 
 mythology. The young Eoman poets had made such 
 an abuse of it that in a few years it had lost all its 
 freshness. " Who does not know," says Virgil, " pitiless 
 Eurystheus and execrable Busiris ? Who has not 
 celebrated young Hylas, and Delos, dear to Latona, and 
 Hippodamia, and Pelops, the fiery rider with his ivory 
 shoulder ? " All these subjects, fitted to please idle 
 minds, seem to him exhausted {omnia jam vulgata). 
 He desires to walk far from the crowd, and try new 
 roads that will lead to glory. There are moments 
 when, fashion having run for some time in a different 
 direction, the old becomes new again. It would seem 
 then, thnt Virgil intended to return to the tradition of 
 the old Latin poets, and compose an entirely historical
 
 166 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 epic. In fact, he announces to Augustus that he is 
 about to sing his combats : 
 
 " Moz tamen ardentes accingar dicere pvgnas 
 CcBsaris." 
 
 He fortunately changed his mind. In taking for his 
 subject the wars against Brutus and Antony, he would 
 have found himself contending with the difficulties 
 which Lucian, in spite of his genius, failed to overcome. 
 He did well to go back further, to the very beginnings 
 of Eome. His poem has not the less remained 
 thoroughly historical, not only because of the constant 
 allusions made to historical events and personages, but 
 from the very nature of the subject, which is the 
 glorification of Eome, and from the grave and sustained 
 tone of the narrative. And yet it is mythological too, 
 since gods and goddesses are the principal actors in the 
 drama, and Olympus and the earth are spoken of in the 
 same breath. By placing his fable in an epoch when 
 legend and history are confounded together, he has 
 suppressed their antagonism, and has thus been able to 
 combine the advantages of both schools without 
 incurring their disadvantages. 
 
 But may it not be objected that he went back too 
 far ? It may appear that, since he wished to glorify 
 Eome in her foundation, it was not ^neas he should 
 have chosen, ^neas only founded Lavinium, and is 
 for the Eomans but a very distant ancestor. The 
 ancient chroniclers made him the father or the grand- 
 father of Eomulus, which brought him near enough to 
 the birth of Eome ; but later on, in order somehow or 
 other to bring the legend into harmony with clironology,
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 167 
 
 it was found necessary to intercalate between them the 
 interminable series of Alban kings. It is indeed 
 strange that a poet who desired to celebrate Rome 
 should have chosen an epoch when it did not yet exist, 
 and a hero who lived more than four hundred years 
 ere its foundation. Virgil would have apparently done 
 better to stop at Eomulus, for he would have found 
 himself in the very heart of his subject. Eomulus was 
 then much more popular than ^neas. Everybody 
 knew his name ; on the Palatine, the cabin where he 
 lived was shown ; and the little grotto, shaded by a fig- 
 tree, where it is said the wolf had nursed him, was 
 an object of devotion. Poetry had seized on these 
 relics at a very early date, and in singing them had 
 lent them splendour and force. The passages of the 
 First Book of the Annates of Ennius, where he relates 
 the dream of the vestal, the birth of the son of Mars, and 
 his struggle with Remus, were in the memories of every 
 educated Roman ; and all repeated with emotion those 
 beautiful lines, at once so strong and tender, express- 
 ing the gratitude of all the Romans to him who gave 
 their city its life : — 
 
 " Eomule, Romule die 
 
 Qualem te patrioi c^istodem di yenuerunt ! 
 
 fater, gcnitor^ sanguen dis oriundum ! " 
 
 Nevertheless Virgil preferred -^neas to Romulus, 
 and he had many reasons for doing so. One of the 
 chief was certainly a desire to please the Emperor. 
 Among all the families who boasted of a Trojan origin, 
 the Caesars held the first place. While the Memmii, the 
 Sergii, and the Cluentii were content to have for 
 ancestors lieutenants of ^neas, the C.Tsars boldly
 
 168 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 connected themselves with ^neas himself, and 
 claimed descent from his son lulus. In singing the 
 father of the Eomans, Virgil celebrated the ancestor of 
 the Julii. This was a means of giving the Emperor's 
 power an appearance of legitimacy, and of making him, 
 across the centuries, the natural heir of the kings of 
 Rome. He thought then to serve his country, while 
 paying to the prince his debt of personal gratitude. 
 At the same time he fulfilled the promise he had made 
 him in the Georgics, to raise him an immortal 
 monument. It was, of course, no longer an historical 
 poem devoted to a recital of the Emperor's exploits ; 
 but he was easily recognised under the features of the 
 chief of his race. The glory of the ancestor illumined 
 the descendant, and although the name of ^neas was 
 inscribed on the pediment of the building, it might be 
 said that Augustus was its centre, and that, in reality, 
 he occupied it all : 
 
 "7?i medio mihi Ccesar erit, tevijilumqne tenehit ! " 
 
 Virgil had yet another reason for preferring ^neas to 
 Eomulus and the others, which must have seemed to 
 him important, -^neas already figures in the Iliad, 
 and his name recalls both the battle in which he took 
 part and the warriors whom he knew. To speak of 
 him, then, was a natural occasion to multiply allusions 
 to the Homeric poems and re-animate the heroes of the 
 Trojan War. This is a pleasure which Virgil indulges 
 in as much as he can. Although he knows the danger 
 there is of provoking disadvantageous comparisons, he 
 exposes himself to it at every moment. He seeks 
 every means to connect his poem with that of Homer ;
 
 THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 169 
 
 he imitates the chief incidents, and causes the person- 
 ages to live again. Hector is re-born in the words of 
 Andromache; Diomedes is found again in Southern 
 Italy, and does not want much pressing in order to 
 talk of his old deeds ; Ulysses is traced in the 
 enchanted palace of Circe, and in the isle of the 
 Cyclops, while Hecuba, Helen, and Priam are seen 
 once more during the last night of Ilium. For Virgil, 
 as for us, Homer was not only a great epic poet ; he 
 was the Epos personified. So he must have deemed 
 himself happy to draw as near to him as possible, both 
 by the subject and the personages of his poem. And 
 this completes our understanding of his reasons for 
 choosing the legend of ^neas. 
 
 Was he right or wrong in doing so ? May it bo said, 
 with certain critics, that in the J^neid the choice of 
 the subject has prejudiced the success of the work — 
 that a poem whose hero was a foreigner and a stranger 
 was doomed in advance never to become popular and 
 national ? After the long study just read, the reply to 
 this seems easy. Doubtless the legend of ^neas is of 
 Greek origin ; but we have seen that it soon became 
 acclimatised in Eome, that it took a Roman colouring 
 by its mixture with the legends of the country, and, 
 finally, that the State, far from combating, at an early 
 date officially adopted it. When Virgil took possession 
 of it, it had been related by the historitins and sung by 
 the poets for more than two centuries. We cannot 
 then regard it as one of those frivolous fables which the 
 poet invents at his fancy, and pretend that ^neas, son 
 of Venus, was as indifferent to Romans of the Augustan 
 epoch as was Francus, son of Hector, to Frenchmen of 
 the sixteenth century.
 
 170 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Does this mean that it was as popular in Eome as 
 the stories of Achilles and Ulysses were in Greece ? 
 To suppose this were to forget the radical differences 
 between the two countries. In the Greek cities the 
 disdain for foreigners, the dominating passion of the 
 Hellenes, maintains the race in its purity. There may 
 be diversities of rank and fortune between the citizens ; 
 but they have all the same origin. The national tradi- 
 tions are a treasure belonging to all, and which none 
 allow to be lost. The poet who undertakes to celebrate 
 them is understood by every one ; he sings for the poor 
 and for the rich, for the lettered and for the ignorant ; 
 and when he succeeds, his success is truly popular, 
 since there is no one in the whole nation who does not 
 take pleasure in listening to him. It could not be thus 
 in a city like Eome, formed of a mixture of different 
 races. A population constantly renewing itself, and 
 composed of heterogeneous elements, has few common 
 traditions, and quickly forgets them. I suppose that 
 the plebeians, whose recollections did not go back very 
 far, knew indeed but little about all these ancient 
 fables collected by the learned, and that they left them 
 very indifferent. Nor was it for them that Virgil 
 wrote. He knew that he would have lost his time, and 
 that it was not possible to interest the entire people 
 from base to summit in his work, as could be done in 
 the case of the Greeks. He only addressed the en- 
 lightened classes — the noble by birth or fortune, the 
 upper citizen circles, and persons of education. All 
 these people — some from aristocratic vanity and 
 others in order to imitate those above them — willingly 
 recurred to the past. They preserved its memory and
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 171 
 
 liked to hear it spoken of. It is in this class of society 
 that Virgil was popular ; and as it was educated, so it 
 had read the Homeric poems, and knew the Annates of 
 Ennius and the works of the Latin chroniclers, therefore 
 the legend of ^Eneas was quite familiar to it. In 
 choosing it for the subject of his poem, Virgil was 
 certain neither to surprise nor displease the public for 
 whom he wrote. 
 
 II. 
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 
 
 It would be a very charming journey to accompany 
 ^neas from Troy to Laurentum, vid Thrace, the 
 Cyclades, Crete, and Epirus, stopping at Carthage to 
 receive the hospitality of Dido. But, unfortunately, 
 everybody has neither the time nor the means to 
 undertake so long a jaunt, and one must know how 
 to limit oneself. Furthermore, these ports and isles 
 are for ^Eneas merely stages where he touches, and 
 Virgil does not take the trouble to describe them. He 
 scarcely tells us anything even of Africa itself, where 
 his hero remains longer than he ought to do. This is 
 not the true country of the u^Encid ; we must reserve 
 this title for Sicily and Italy. Those are the lands 
 known and loved by the poet, whither he likes to lead 
 ^Eneas, and which he is happy in describing. We are 
 about to try and go over them with him.
 
 172 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 HOW VIRGIL CAME TO KNOW SICILY — POLLION COUNSELS 
 HIM TO IMITATE THEOCRITUS — BY WHAT QUALITIES 
 THEOCRITUS MUST HAVE PLEASED VIRGIL — THE 
 MORETUM — WHY VIRGIL DID NOT CONTINUE TO 
 WRITE REALISTIC POEMS — SICILY IN THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 We learn from Virgil's biography that he was very 
 fond of Campania and Sicily, and that he often lived 
 there. Born at the foot of the Alps, where the winters 
 are often rainy and rough, he doubtless felt the kind of 
 instinct which impels people of the north towards 
 southern countries. Perhaps he found, too, that warm 
 climates better suited his health, which was always bad. 
 He did not like Eome, although he possessed a house 
 on the Esquiline, near the palace of Majcenas. It was 
 too noisy and busy a town for him, and he could only 
 write amid calm and silence. In order to give the last 
 touch to his Gcorgics, he ran away to Naples ; and when 
 the u^neid was in question, he felt it necessary to go 
 further still. We are told that he composed a part of it 
 in Sicily. 
 
 He probably owed his first revelations with regard to 
 Sicily to the idylls of Theocritus, and learned from them 
 to know and love it. Well, we know at what moment 
 and in what manner his attention was first drawn to 
 the Sicilian poet. He was twenty-five years old, 
 and lived on the farm of his fatlier, a well-to-do 
 peasant, who had given him the education of a great
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 173 
 
 lord. He had returned thither after the conckision oi: 
 his studies, and probably did not think of leaving it again. 
 While he was leading an indolent, dreamy existence in 
 that beautiful country " where the Mincius rolls its lazy 
 course," poetry fermented in him, and sought an outlet. 
 His imagination, still imperfectly regulated, drew him 
 in every direction. He seemed not to know himself, 
 and could not settle. Sometimes he composed little 
 occasional pieces on the trivial events spoken of round 
 about him ; at others he raised his voice, and, passing 
 from one extreme to the other, sketched the beginning 
 of an epic. The verses he wrote thus at haphazard 
 were read to his friends, and made him a certain repu- 
 tation in the neighbourhood. PoUion then governed 
 Cisalpine Gaul. He was a clever man, who devoted 
 liis leisure to history and poetry, and always delighted 
 to patronise literature. He doubtless divined the 
 young man's talent, and regretting the indecision in 
 which so fine a genius was tarrying, he resolved to 
 put him in a regular way, and pointed out a model for 
 him to follow. 
 
 That model was Theocritus, whom the Eomans seem 
 liitherto to have neglected. The study of Theocritus 
 charmed Virgil so much that for at least three years he 
 did nothing but imitate him. Although no ancient 
 critic has told us by what qualities this author must 
 have chiefly pleased him, it does not seem to me diffi- 
 cult to guess. I imagine that in this confusion of his 
 first years, when the component elements of his genius 
 were not yet united and welded together, he must have 
 felt two different tendencies drawing him in contrary 
 directions. He had, in fact, received two different
 
 174 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 educations, whose impress lie kept to the end. Nature 
 had tirst been the master whose lessons had charmed 
 him, and whom he ever passionately loved. His child- 
 hood was passed in the fields, and for him who under- 
 stands them, the fields are a school of nature and 
 simplicity. They give a taste for the true, the artless, 
 the sincere, and a hatred for the affected and the 
 mannered. Such must have been the lesson learnt 
 from this first contemplation of Nature, and which 
 remained at the very root of his talent. But he also 
 began early the study of books. At Cremona, at Milan, 
 at Eome, he frequented the scholiasts, the rhetoricians, 
 and the philosophers, and he also became acquainted 
 with Greek literature, reading Homer, Socrates, and 
 Plato. It was another intoxication, and his soul, which 
 felt nothing by halves, gave itself up entirely to this 
 admirable poetry. The masters charged with the ex- 
 planations of its beauties were generally ingenious, 
 refined minds, who above all sought to imbue their 
 pupils with a feeling for its delicacy and grace — that 
 is to say, for its literary merits. Virgil, like a docile 
 pupil, prized these charming qualities highly, yet 
 without losing sight of the others ; and it was doubt- 
 less from the two educations which he had successively 
 received that he imbibed both the sentiment of the 
 simple grandeur which rural life teaches us to love, and 
 the more artificial beauties learnt in the schools ; that, 
 in short, he became an artist and remained a country- 
 man. 
 
 If, as I think, he was in this frame of mind when he 
 read Theocritus, I am not surprised that he should have 
 been so impressed by him ; for it is just this quality of
 
 .^NEAS IN SICILY. 175 
 
 uniting Art and Nature which the Sicilian poet possesses 
 in a wonderful degree.^ 
 
 At heart he is an exquisite, a friend of the poets of 
 Alexandria ; mused, like them, " in the aviary of the 
 Muses ; " but this does not prevent him from choosing 
 as the usual heroes of his verses goat-herds and drovers. 
 To descend to them while remaining himself does not 
 cost him an effort. He makes them sing under the 
 great trees, " while harmonious bees hum around the 
 hives, the birds warble under the leaves, and the heifers 
 dance on the thick turf," ^ and their songs have at one 
 and the same time a rustic accent and all the refine- 
 ments of laborious art. They sometimes coarsely attack 
 each other ; like villagers, they revile their masters, they 
 insult their rivals ; and all this abuse is composed of 
 the most exquisite sounds, which sing to the ear like 
 music. It is a succession of complicated rhythms, that, 
 calling and answering each other, contrast and combine 
 according to learned laws, of which a herdsman certainly 
 never had an idea. The shepherds of Theocritus are gener- 
 ally simple, superstitious, credulous folk, who spit three 
 times in their bosoms to escape witchcraft,^ and who 
 think their mistress is about to return when they feel a 
 twitching in their right eye."^ But they are also artists 
 who understand and who enumerate all the beauties of 
 a vase whose sides are covered with delicate carving, 
 and skilful singers, who draw harmonious sounds from 
 the syrinx, and who find " that summer and springtime 
 
 ^ On Theocritus, see M. Girard's two studies in the Revue des 
 Deux Moiules of March 15th and May 1st, 1882. M. Couat also 
 treats of the Sicilian poet in his Poesie Alexandrine. 
 
 2 VI. 45. 3 Yi. 39 4 ni. 31.
 
 176 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 are not so sweet as the Muse." ^ All are amorous, yet 
 their manner of loving is not the same. While some 
 impress their passion in a few words of deep and simple 
 truth, others describe it with ingenious refinement, like 
 clever people on their guard, as one had to be in the 
 court of Ptolemy or Hieron. When deserted by their 
 mistresses, some moan and complain gently, as becomes 
 well-bred people, while others are less enduring and less 
 proper. There are even some who unceremoniously 
 give the faithless one a blow on the nape of the neck, 
 soon followed by a second.^ There is the same variety 
 in their pleasures. One thinks it the greatest bliss of 
 all to watch in winter the beech log burning on the hearth, 
 and " the smoking tripe cooking on the fire." Others 
 are not so easily satisfied ; they are only pleased when 
 couched on thick beds of odorous mastic or new-cut 
 vine, while the poplars and young elm-trees wave above 
 their heads, and a sacred stream flowing from a nymph- 
 haunted grot harmoniously murmurs at their feet. To 
 bring together and unite these contrary elements re- 
 quired all the suppleness of the Greek genius ; but no 
 poet ever so perfectly blended them as Theocritus. 
 With him all contrasts are merged in the charm of 
 light and shade enveloping the whole. Trom his 
 entire work, composed of such different parts, results 
 a singular impression, which gives to the refined the 
 illusion of Nature, and enables the simple to define the 
 seduction of Art. Virgil, as we have just seen, was 
 both. He loved Art and Nature equally, and found in 
 Theocritus the wherewithal to gratify both his passions 
 
 1 IX. 28. ' XIV. 34. 
 
 ^
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 177 
 
 at once. This is why he was so happy to read and so 
 eager to imitate him. 
 
 Among the works attributed to him is a piece one 
 would fain think his, since it is very charming, and 
 seems to have been composed in his youth. It is a 
 picture of country life, very different in character from 
 those he drew in the Bucolics. Here his only aim is to 
 paint exactly a vulgar truth. It is what in our days 
 we should call a realistic piece. Although very ancient, 
 it seems composed according to all the rules of the new 
 school. The author has not been prodigal of invention 
 or style ; he merely contents himself with reproducing 
 what he has before his eyes, without pretending to 
 change anything. He describes the morning of a 
 peasant, from the moment he rises to the hour he goes 
 to work. Let us first remark that the man is not called 
 Tityrus or Menalcus, as in an idyll, but " the flat-nosed " 
 (Simulus), which is quite a Eoman name.^ We see him 
 slowly rise from his couch. The night is black, and, 
 half asleep, he gropes with his hands before him towards 
 the hearth. When he gets to it he says, " Here I am." 
 Then he lights his lamp with all kinds of precautions, 
 " stretching his hand towards the east wind to prevent 
 the light going out." He soon wakes an only servant, an 
 old negress, of whom he draws us a striking portrait. 
 " She has frizzled hair, a thick lip, a large bosom, hang- 
 ing breasts, a flat stomach, thin legs, and a foot which 
 spreads at ease : " — 
 
 " Pectore lata, jacens vutvimis, conipressior alvo, 
 Crunbus exilis, S2Mtiosa jjrodirja planta." 
 
 ^ When speaking of a flat-noseJ girl, Lucretius calls her " Simula." 
 M
 
 178 THE COUNTRY OF HOllACE AND VIKGIL. 
 
 Helped by his servant, Simulus bakes his bread, and 
 prepares the dish which he is to carry away for his 
 dinner. It is a national dish called morchim, from which 
 our poem takes its name. The author is careful to give 
 us the recipe, which does not much tempt us to imitate 
 it. It consists of garlic, onion, celery, rue, and cheese. 
 All these ingredients are put into a mortar, and while 
 Simulus pounds them, an acid odour seizes his nostrils, 
 his brows wrinkle, and anon with his hands he wipes 
 his weeping eyes. When the pestle no longer jumps, 
 he passes his two fingers round the mortar, in order to 
 bring to the centre what covers the sides. The opera- 
 tion finished, he puts on his strong boots, claps his 
 galerus upon his head, goes out to his work — and here 
 our little poem ends. 
 
 The work is piquant and curious in its rusticity ; nor 
 would it surprise me if, with our present bent and the 
 taste prevalent among the public, it were at the present 
 time preferred to the Bucolics. It will certainly be 
 asked why Virgil, supposing him to be its author, did 
 not continue to describe country life in this manner ? 
 Why did he change his method, and having begun to 
 walk in a new path, abruptly leave it to follow in the 
 steps of Theocritus ? We must believe him less 
 satisfied than ourselves with his work, and that these 
 servilely exact pictures did not appear to him the 
 perfection of art. Perhaps he thought that our every- 
 day existence being usually so mediocre and flat, it is 
 really not worth while to live it twice — in reality and in 
 dreamland ! Being sad by nature and inclined to look 
 at things from their worst side, to escape for a moment 
 from real life seemed to him sweet : and he must have
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 179 
 
 clung more than any one to that imaginary existence 
 in which we can at least correct the miseries of the 
 other, and find help to bear them. The perusal of 
 Theocritus revealed to him a kind of literature in which 
 reality is spiced with a flavouring of the ideal. This was 
 what suited his tastes, and thenceforth he knew no 
 other. 
 
 Here, then, he is plunged into imitation of the Greek 
 poet. At the same time his Muse must become in some 
 sort expatriated and wander from the spots it first 
 frequented. Tityrus and Menalcus cannot, like Simulus, 
 be dwellers on the banks of the Po ; for never did such 
 shepherds lead their flocks in the plains of Cisalpina. 
 In order to admit their being, it is needful to imagine 
 them to have come from far. Theocritus places them in 
 Sicily, an admirable country in which to house fancies 
 partaking at once of reality and the ideal. Virgil had 
 nought better to do than to leave them there. Sicily 
 therefore became for him the land above all others of 
 the eclogue, and at times even Arcadia scarcely disputes 
 with it this privilege. When he wants to draw shep- 
 herds playing on the syrinx and making rustic songs, 
 he dreams of Sicily. The land enthralls his fancy ; it is 
 everywhere recurring in his verses, and when about to 
 sing new songs, the Muse he invokes is a Sicilian 
 one : 
 
 " Sicelides Musce, faulo majora canavius" ' 
 
 Eural poetry calls up in him the memory of 
 Syracuse, and he begins his last eclogue by saluting the 
 
 ^ ^n., IV. 1.
 
 180 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 charming fountain of Ortygia, of which poets relate so 
 many legends : 
 
 ^^Extremum hunc, Arethnsa, mihi concede lahorem." '■ 
 
 When Corydon wishes to dazzle his friend by a 
 picture of his wealth, he renders him an account of his 
 sheep which feed on the pastures of Sicily : 
 
 " Mille mete siculis erant in montibus agwje." '^ 
 
 Although suspected of being a Cisalpian, and of 
 scarcely ever having quitted Mantua, he tells us, like 
 Polyphemus, that he has seen his form in the placid 
 sea, and did not find himself ugly : 
 
 " Nee sum adeo informis ; nuper me in littore vidi. 
 Qnum jjlacidum ventis staret mare." ^ 
 
 That sea, let us doubt not, is the one in which the 
 heights of Taorminus or the slopes of ^tna are seen to 
 sparkle in the sun — the sea spoken of in those divine 
 verses of the shepherd of Theocritus : " I crave not to 
 possess the fields of Pelops, or pile up heaps of gold ; 
 nor would I fly more swiftly than the winds ; but may 
 'neath this rock but hold thee in mine arms, and, look- 
 ing on my feeding sheep, launch forth my songs 
 towards Sicilia's sea." * 
 
 1 ^n., X. 1. ^ Ibid., II, 21. 
 
 3 Jbid., II. 35, 4 IbuL, VIII. 53.
 
 .TINEAS IN SICILY. 181 
 
 11. 
 
 SICILY IN Virgil's time — character of the greeks of 
 
 SICILY — WHY THEY WERE ATTACHED TO ROMAN 
 RULE — SICILY RUINED AND PILLAGED BY ROMAN 
 GOVERNORS — WHAT TRAVELLERS WENT TO SEEK 
 IN SICILY — MARVELS OF NATURE — MARVELS OF ART 
 — THE MONUMENTS OF THAT TIME — PUBLIC TEMPLES 
 PRIVATE GALLERIES — SHRINE OF HEIUS — TASTE OF 
 THE ROMANS OF THAT TIME FOR WORKS OF ART — 
 THE PORTRAIT OF VERRES DRAWN BY CICERO — 
 ATTRACTIONS OF SICILY FOR VIRGIL. 
 
 It was thus Virgil became acquainted with Sicily, 
 and as he at first only knew it from the idylls of 
 Theocritus, it was difficult for him not to become 
 enraptured with it. We must believe that when later 
 on he visited it himself, his pleasure was as intense, 
 and that the reality confirmed all his dream illusions. 
 Sicily is one of these beautiful countries where 
 deceptions are not to be feared, and which fulfil 
 everything that is expected of them. 
 
 We have the somewhat rare good fortune to know 
 approximately in what condition Virgil must have 
 found it. As a rule, the condition of Eoman provinces is 
 but little known. Nobody tells us of them, all eyes being 
 turned towards the capital, from which they are not 
 wont to be diverted towards the surrounding country. 
 But in consequence of a certain event some years 
 previous to the Augustan epoch, general attention was 
 for a moment fixed on Sicily. A great lord who ruled
 
 182 THE COUNTRY OF HOE ACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 it in the name of the lioman people, having as usual 
 treated it very harshly, the Sicilians attacked him before 
 the tribunals of Eome. They were supported by the 
 democratic party, who wished, in the person of the 
 extortionate prietor, to discredit all his caste, and Cicero 
 was charged to prosecute him. Causes of this kind 
 were very common at the time, and once decided, they 
 were soon forgotten. Thanks to the orator's talent, 
 that of Verres became immortal. The orations of 
 Cicero have fortunately been preserved, and they 
 abound in curious details on the condition of Sicily. 
 Let us draw from this inexhaustible source, and ascer- 
 tain what it was at that moment, and the effect it must 
 have produced on Romans who went to visit it. 
 
 "We are told, to start with, that although the popu- 
 lation of Sicily was very mixed, one of the elements 
 composing it had nearly absorbed all the others, and 
 that a single tongue — the Greek — ruled in the entire 
 island. The Romans were surprised to see that the 
 Greeks of this country did not quite resemble those they 
 met elsewhere. They had, like their countrymen, much 
 delicacy and charm of mind as well as their taste for 
 argument, and, above all, their liking for raillery. 
 " In their greatest trials," says Cicero, " they always 
 find some occasion to jest." ^ But they were also sober 
 and laborious, two qualities not met with in a like 
 degree among the inhabitants of Greece proper or the 
 Greeks of Asia.^ Cicero adds that the Roman domina- 
 tion had been well received by them. They willingly 
 associated with the merchants of Rome who brought 
 
 1 II., Ferr., IV. 43. - Ibid., II. 3.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 183 
 
 them their capital and their industry, and they worked 
 their lands conjointly with them, as they afterwards 
 did their vines and their sulphur with Germans and 
 Englishmen. This does not mean that they had a 
 particular liking for the Eomans, but that they felt 
 it impossible to do without them. They reckoned on 
 their help to escape a danger from which they could 
 not defend themselves alone. The cultivation of cereals 
 was the great industry of Sicily, and the peasantry 
 having become scarce there as elsewhere, it was 
 necessary to replace them by slaves. We know that 
 rich persons possessed several thousand. These slaves 
 were not settled in the villages or scattered over the 
 farms, as field labourers are with us, since Sicily could 
 not then possess more villages and isolated farms than 
 she does in our days. They were assembled in great 
 troops, like those labourers we see perform the sowing 
 or the harvest in the plains of Southern Italy. Ill-fed, 
 ill-clad, hardly treated, they were led to work by 
 villid, who must have borne a strong likeness to the 
 caporali of to-day. They worked with shackled feet, and 
 during the daytime the superintendence of the villiais 
 prevented them from communicating with each other. 
 But at night, in their temporary camps, it was easy 
 for them to concert together. It is thus that, within 
 a few years, two revolts broke out which terrified the 
 world. A Syrian and a Cilician, at the head of more 
 than sixty thousand herdsmen and labourers, were seen 
 holding Eoman generals in check, devastating the 
 provinces, and spilling the blood of freemen in torrents. 
 From that moment the Sicilians lived in a sort of 
 perpetual terror. Laws were made forbidding slaves
 
 l84 THE COUNTRY OF IIORACn AND VinCIL. 
 
 ever to carry arms about them, on pain of death, and 
 these laws were observed with the utmost rigour. 
 ** One day," says Cicero, " an enormous boar was 
 brought to Domitius the pnetor. Surprised at the 
 animal's size, he wanted to know who had killed it. 
 They told him the shepherd of a Sicilian, and he 
 ordered him to be sent for. The shepherd came in. 
 haste, expecting praise and rewards. Domitius asked 
 how he had slain this formidable beast. 'With a boar- 
 spear,' he replied. And instantly the prretor had him 
 put on the cross." ^ To this ever-menacing scourge, 
 another had of late years been added. Fleets of pirates 
 from Cilicia covered the Mediterranean. Their light 
 vessels passed through the squadrons sent to watch 
 them, and laughed at the heavy Koman galleys. One 
 day they were seen to enter in bravado the port of 
 Syracuse itself, and after going the round of the quays, 
 quietly leave it, without anybody daring to follow 
 them.2 Against all these dangers the Sicilians needed 
 the support of Eome, and thus, since the Punic Wars, 
 they had always shown themselves submissive subjects. 
 They were continually paying court to their conquerors, 
 and Cicero remarks, with some surprise, that many 
 among them took lioman names, which appeared to 
 show a desire to renounce their ancient nationality and 
 accept that of their new masters.^ The two races were 
 
 1 II., Verr., V. 3. 
 
 "' Ibid., V. 37. 
 
 3 Ibid., Y. 43. It was Antony who, after the death of Caesar, gave 
 the right of Roman citizenship to all Sicily. He pretended to have 
 found the decree, which he published in the Dictator's papers ; but 
 Cicero thinks the Sicilians had paid him to fabricate it.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 185 
 
 therefore beginning to mix together, unci that assimila- 
 tion of Sicily with Italy which in our time has become 
 so complete was already in preparation. 
 
 Not that Eome always afforded the Sicilians very 
 efficacious protection. She sometimes chose to govern 
 it people who performed their functions very badly, 
 and who pillaged those they should have defended. 
 Verres, by keeping for himself the money destined for 
 the support of the fleet, and by placing it under the 
 command of his mistress's husband, whose incapacity 
 as an admiral equalled his marital complacency, had 
 delivered it to the pirates. He himself, during the two 
 years of his prretorship, had only been solicitous to fill 
 his coffers and his galleries. He had put up all 
 the municipal offices of the province for sale, had 
 made the peasantry pay twice as much as they 
 ought, and, uiider pretence of imaginary crimes, 
 had confiscated the fortunes of the richest and most 
 distinguished persons. " Sicily," said Cicero, " is to-day 
 so enfeebled and forlorn, that she will never more 
 regain her ancient prosperity. " ^ This was a prediction, 
 and it was accomplished to the letter. The Empire 
 doubtless gave to Sicily, as to the rest of the world, 
 peace without and security within. For nearly three 
 centuries the pirates were no longer heard of. There 
 were a few more revolts of slaves — for example, that of 
 Selurus, who was called " the son of ^tna," because he 
 for a long time overran and devastated the environs of 
 that mountain. Strabo saw him devoured alive by the 
 beasts in the great circus of Eome, after a combat of 
 
 1 Ferr., I.
 
 186 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 gladiators. " They put him," he says, " on a very high 
 scaffolding representing JFAna,. Suddenly the scaffold- 
 ing came to pieces and fell in, and he was hurled into 
 the midst of cages filled with wild beasts that had 
 been placed beneath."^ As we see, these attempts 
 were vigorously repressed, and they never assumed the 
 terrible character of those of Eunus and Athenion. 
 Yet, in spite of the calm enjoyed by the province under 
 the Empire, it never recovered.- Is it not strange that 
 the peace, which it had so longed for and so little 
 known, could not give it back for a moment that 
 prosperity, that brilliancy, that intensity of life, that 
 glory of letters and of arts, which had favoured it so 
 wonderfully while struggling amidst fearful disorders? 
 
 There happily remained to it what it held from 
 nature, and nothing could take away : the riches of an 
 inexhaustible soil, in a small space an astonishing 
 variety of sites, picturesque mountains, wastes well 
 outlined, and a climate of admirable serenity which 
 struck even Italians with surprise. " It is affirmed," 
 said Cicero, " that at Syracuse there is no day so dull 
 but the sun shines some few moments."^ Add to 
 this all those volcanic phenomena so complacently 
 mentioned by Strabo, and which excited wonder in 
 proportion to the impossibility of explaining them : 
 those burning fountains gushing from the earth ; those 
 
 1 Strabo, VI. 2-5. 
 
 - The Emperors seem to liave become discouraged from busying 
 themselves about Sicily. It is one of the few provinces where no 
 milestones, so frequent elsewhere, have been found, which seems to 
 show that there were no great highways, or that they were not kept 
 in repair by the public authorities. See Mommsen's reflections on the 
 subject {Corp. insc. IcU., X, p. 714). 
 
 3 II., Far., V. 10.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 187 
 
 mountains flinging torrents of fire or mud ; those 
 flames running capriciously over the waters ; those 
 islands rising suddenly from the sea and sinking into 
 it again ; in short, all those extraordinary sights which, 
 their reasons being unknown, were accounted for by 
 legends, and gave Sicily the reputation of being a land 
 of wonders. 
 
 But it was not this which chiefly attracted travellers. 
 The author of a poem on ^tna complains that people 
 trouble themselves but little to admire the great 
 sights of Nature, whilst they traverse countries, cross 
 seas, and give themselves a thousand pains for the 
 sake of contemplating celebrated pictures or old 
 monuments.^ So the curious went to Agrigentum or 
 Syracuse, as they went to Athens or Corinth, to visit 
 the masterpieces of Greek art. It is certain that their 
 expectation was not deceived, and that they did not 
 regret their journey. Let us remember that all those 
 buildings whose ruins astonish us, although we have only 
 their skeletons left, were then intact and complete. 
 The temples still had their pediments and sculptured 
 friezes ; the wind and the rain had not worn the fluting 
 of the columns. These were covered with a coating of 
 stucco strong enough to protect them, yet sufficiently 
 thin not to appear heavy, like those transparent 
 draperies which so perfectly show the forms of ancient 
 statues. The Metopes produced their full effect, placed 
 above columns in the very spot for which they had 
 been made, instead of being ranged along the walls of 
 a museum, as we see them to-day. It must be added 
 
 ' u^tna, .563, et seq.
 
 188 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL, 
 
 that all this Doric architecture, which seems to us so 
 majestic and so grave, was then set off and brightened, 
 as it were, by colours long since effaced by time. It 
 is now known that the Greeks used to apply to 
 marble and stucco paintings which at first served to 
 correct the crudeness of the natural tones, and later, as 
 the monuments grew old, prevented them from assuming 
 those varieties of tint so destructive to the unity of the 
 whole. Let us make an effort of the imagination, and 
 strive to picture to ourselves the aspect those fine 
 edifices must have presented. The great exterior parts 
 are usually painted light yellow, a colour less dazzling 
 in the sun and less crude than white, which comes out 
 better against the clouds, and contrasts more pleasantly 
 with the verdure. On this uniform ground the decora- 
 tive details are picked out in livelier tints. The 
 triglyphs are painted blue, the background of the 
 Metopes and the pediments red, while the columns 
 spring lightly from a darker basement. Sometimes 
 delicately traced lines indicate the jointing of the 
 stones. Pliny, speaking of a temple of Cyzicus, says 
 that " the gold seemed only a pencil-mark as fine as 
 a hair," and that " nevertheless it produced marvellous 
 reflections." Towards the top, along the friezes and 
 above them, the ornaments are more numerous, and the 
 colours more varied and lively, as if to form a sort of 
 crown to the edifice.^ So much for the outside. We 
 
 ^ I licre use M. Hittorflf's ideas, and often his very expressions. As 
 is well known, it was he who, not witliout raising violent disputes, 
 first maintained that Greek monuments were covered with colours, and 
 it was his studies on the temples of Segestes and Selinonte which 
 revealed this truth to him. His great work. The Ancient Archi-
 
 iENEAS IN SICILY. 189 
 
 see how greatly it differed then from what it is to-day. 
 As for the interior, we have nothing left of it. The 
 walls of the cella — that is to say, of the very dwelling of 
 the god — have disappeared almost everywhere, and this 
 is a great pity, for they were often covered with fine 
 paintings. At Syracuse, in the temple of Minerva, 
 there were a series of pictures representing the 
 incidents of a cavalry battle fought by Agathocles. 
 " There is not," says Cicero, " a picture more famous, or 
 which attracts a larger number of strangers." ^ In the 
 same temple they also went to see sculptured doors, as 
 we visit those of Ghiberti, at Florence. They were con- 
 sidered an admirable work, and critics of Greek art had 
 composed many treatises to set forth their beauties. 
 What appeared more curious yet was to see ranged 
 along the walls the gifts that had been offered to the 
 gods. Pliny the Younger relates that, having received 
 an inheritance, he had ventured to purchase a statuette 
 of Corinthian bronze, representing an old man, standing, 
 which seemed to him a fine work. " I do not mean to 
 keep it for myself," he tells us. " I wish to offer it to 
 Como, my birthplace, and place it there in some fre- 
 quented place, preferably in the Temple of Jupiter. It 
 is a gift which seems to me worthy of a temple, worthy 
 of a god." In truth, fine statues are not out of place 
 
 tedure of Sicily, which he left incomplete, was finished by his son, 
 M. Chas. Hittorff, and published in 1870. M. Chas. Hittorff sought to 
 efface himself before his father, of whom he was a most devoted fellow- 
 worker, and would not put his name to the first page ; but this filial 
 piety must not deprive him of the share of credit justly due'to him for 
 his part in a common work, 
 1 II., Ferr., IV. 55.
 
 190 THE COUNTEY OF IIOKACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 there, even when they do not represent the divinity one 
 comes to pray to ; but there was much besides. Only 
 to speak of the temples of Sicily, Cicero reports that 
 tables of marble were seen there, bronze vases, ingots of 
 gold, with ivory tusks of extraordinary size ; and hang- 
 ing from the walls were helmets and cuirasses tastefully 
 wrought, as well as wooden pikes, which had doubtless 
 served the ancient kings of the country as sceptres.^ 
 The temples, then, were not merely museums, as has 
 been often said, but genuine storehouses of curiosi- 
 ties. 
 
 It must have sometimes been difficult for the inex- 
 perienced traveller to find his way in the midst of all 
 these heaped-up riches. Happily he could apply to 
 zealous and obliging persons, w^hose race is not extinct 
 in Italy, and who made it their profession to guide 
 strangers and make them admire the ancient monu- 
 ments. They were called " mystagogues " or periegetes. 
 There were many of them in Sicily, as well as in all 
 Greek countries visited by the curious, and Cicero 
 describes them as very much perplexed after Verres h^d 
 cleared out all the temples. He says : " Being no longer 
 able to show the precious objects, they were reduced to 
 pointing out the places they used to occupy," - which is 
 not quite the same thing. 
 
 Independent of the public monuments, gymnasiums, 
 theatres, or temples, which contained so many remark- 
 able works, there were in Sicily many galleries belong- 
 ing to private persons, which strangers were per- 
 mitted to visit, as is still the case in Rome and 
 
 ' II., Kerr., IV. 56. -Ibid., IV. 59.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 191 
 
 other important towns in Italy, Cicero speaks of many 
 of these rich collections, which, to their misfortune, 
 excited the covetousness of the Verres. But there are 
 two which he especially praises : that of Stenius, at 
 Thermcc Himcrenses (now Termini), and that of Heius, 
 at Messina, It had occurred to Heius to bring together 
 the masterpieces of his gallery in a room expressly 
 arranged for the purpose, a thing that was done long after- 
 wards in the Tribuna of Florence, and is being imitated 
 in nearly all the museums of Europe, He possessed a 
 little chapel, very quiet, very retired, with altars before 
 which to pray to the gods, and had adorned it only with 
 four statues, four marvels : the Cupid of Praxiteles, 
 the bronze Hercules of Myron, and two canephora3 of 
 Polycletes. The Cupid had made the journey to Eome. 
 The eedile, C. Claudius, had borrowed it of his friend 
 Heius to embellish a festival which he gave to 
 the Eoman people. This was told without fail to 
 visitors, just as, in our days, the value of a picture is 
 thought to be increased by relating that it was among 
 those taken away by the French, and placed in the 
 Louvre. The chapel of Heius was open every day, and 
 strangers who visited Messina did not fail to go and see 
 it. " This house," says Cicero, " did no less honour to 
 the town than to its master." 
 
 So people went to visit Sicily then for the same 
 reasons that they go now. Above all, she attracted 
 artists, connoisseurs, or those who deemed themselves 
 such, and admirers of Greek art, who knew her to be at 
 the least as rich in ancient monumants as Greece or 
 Asia. The journey was doubtless not so convenient and 
 rapid as to-day, although perhaps easier to perform than it
 
 192 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 was a few years since. Cicero states that when he had to 
 draw up the indictment against A^erres, he went over the 
 whole island in fifty days, " so as to collect all the com- 
 plaintsof the towns and private persons," ^ which supposes 
 somewhat easy meanS of getting from place to place. 
 And indeed many Konians visited Sicily. In the 
 VerrincSy every time the orator speaks of some important 
 city, or of some famous monument, he seems to suppose 
 that there are persons among his audience who know 
 them. 
 
 This is precisely what excites in us a certain surprise. 
 We are astonished that there should be so many people at 
 Eouie who took the trouble to go so far to see fine build- 
 ings and rich museums. The Eomans had long ostenta- 
 tiously pretended to have a sovereign contempt for the 
 arts, and officiating magistrates and orators who desired 
 to appear serious affected never to have heard of the great 
 artists of Greece. But this was a comedy. In reality 
 the very men who took pleasure in mangling the 
 names of Praxiteles or Polycletes in the tribune were 
 beginning to pay very high prices for their works, and 
 at Uomo a middle-sized bronze had just been sold for 
 120,000 sesterces (or alu)ut £960), the price of a farm.^ 
 Yerres happened to be one of those liomans whom 
 Greek art had captivated ; but as he put himself above 
 prejudices, and prided himself on not practising the 
 ancient virtues, he had the courage to own his tastes, 
 and was not squeamish as to gratifying them. His 
 being sent to Sicily was a great misfortune for him. 
 The sight of the masterpieces of which that country 
 
 ^ l^'err., jrrima act,, 2. 
 - II., Verr. IV. 7.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 193 
 
 was full inflamed his passion and goaded it to every 
 excess. I imagine that, before our tribunals, the kind of 
 fury that had seized him for objects of art would have 
 earned him some indulgence, — at Eome, on the con- 
 trary, it contributed greatly to his ruin. Had he con- 
 tented himself with taking the money of the provincials, 
 he would have created less scandal, since it was then a 
 very common crime, and people were used to it ; but to 
 see a Eoman compromise himself so for the sake of 
 stealing statues and pictures was not at all a usual 
 thing, and indignation was increased by surprise. So 
 extraordinary a crime seemed unworthy of pardon. 
 
 The portrait drawn by Cicero of Verres must be a faith- 
 ful one, and I have remarked that certain details of the 
 figure have not ceased to be true. It is an original of 
 which we have copies. It is not enough to say that he 
 had a taste for works of art — he had a mania for them. 
 Cicero reports that a few days before his suit was tried, 
 he assisted at a feast given by Sisenna, a rich Eoman, 
 and in order to do honour to the guests, all the curio- 
 sities possessed by the master were brought out. Verres 
 had a great object in appearing indifferent to this sight, 
 since it was important for him to hide his folly in order 
 not to prove his accusers in the right. But it was 
 impossible for him not to approach these paraded 
 riches, to see them nearer, to touch them, to handle 
 them — to the great fright of the slaves, who knew his 
 reputation, and did not lose sight of him.^ When an 
 object pleased him, he could no longer do without it — 
 desire of possession became mania. He asked to take it 
 
 1 II., Verr., IV. 15.
 
 194 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND YIRGlL. 
 
 away for a few days and did not return it. Often he 
 proposed to buy it, and at first the owner refused. 
 " The G-reeks," says Cicero, " never willingly sell the 
 precious objects they possess."^ But Verres was 
 absolute master of the province, and had a thousand 
 means of ruining those who did not show themselves 
 willing to oblige him. After begging, he threatened, 
 and the poor wretches ended by resigning themselves, 
 groaning all the while. This is how he came to give 
 only 6500 sesterces (about £52) for four fine statues, 
 and to pay 1600 sesterces (about £12, 16s.) for the 
 Cupid of Praxiteles.^ It was a manifest theft; but 
 Verres only called it a bargain. This is a good word to 
 disguise a doubtful business, and collectors like to use 
 it. Nothing pleases them so much as not to pay its 
 proper price for a thing. They thus at one and the 
 same time gratify their love of economy and their 
 vanity. When it was a question of despoiling the 
 public monuments, Verres met with still less resistance. 
 They were more directly under his hand, besides which 
 each of us is usually less eager to defend wliat belongs 
 to all. Once, however, he was obliged to give way. 
 His agents arrived by night in Agrigentum to take 
 away a statue of Hercules, honoured by the inhabitants 
 with a particular worship. " The chin and lips," says 
 Cicero, " were quite worn away with its adorers' kisses."^ 
 Unfortunately for Verres, the slaves who guarded the 
 temple gave the alarm, and the Agrigentines assembled 
 from all quarters of the town, and put the robbers to 
 flight with stones. 
 
 1 II., Ferr., IV. 59. ^ ji^^^^^ g, s j^^^^^ 43_
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 195 
 
 But he was not accustomed to find himself face to 
 face with such determined adversaries, so he had no 
 need to restrain his passion, which had indeed nothing 
 to hamper it. He not only sought after statues of 
 bronze or marble, Corinthian vases, famous pictures — 
 all those objects, in short, which the curious contended 
 for at immense prices — his mania included everything. 
 He also collected jewels, carpets, furniture, and plate. 
 All the rich families of Sicily possessed 'paUra, incense 
 pans, and precious vases used in the worship of their 
 domestic divinities. When Verres had the discretion 
 not to take them, he at least removed the metal 
 ornaments in which they were enclosed, and which were 
 generally remarkable works of art. Then he fixed these 
 ornaments on gold cups, and thus manufactured sham 
 antiques. At Syracuse there were studios where skilful 
 artificers worked for him, and there he passed entire 
 days, dressed in a l)rown tunic and a Greek mantle.^ 
 This is again a very common fancy among collectors. 
 They imagine that by these repairs and restorations — 
 by allowing themselves to finish and modify the works 
 of the masters, they become their collaborators, and 
 their love increases for works into which they have put 
 something of themselves. 
 
 Cicero adds, as a last touch to the picture, that 
 Verres was at bottom very ignorant, and little capable 
 of appreciating all these works of art which he 
 amassed. He had at his orders very experienced Greek 
 artists, whose duty it was to inform him. " He sees with 
 their eyes," says Cicero, " and takes by their hands." ^ 
 
 » II., Verr., IV. 23. - Rid., IV. 15.
 
 196 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Amateurs are not always connoisseurs, which, how- 
 ever, does not prevent them from passionately loving 
 objects whose full value they do not understand ; for 
 it is well known that the least enlightened passions 
 are sometimes the strongest. That of Verres was 
 increased by the spice of violence and coarseness 
 usually existent in the Eoman soul. They were still 
 soldiers and peasants, Greece had not succeeded in 
 destroying the foundation of barbarism and brutality 
 derived from nature, and they still occasionally united 
 outbursts of savagery with the delicate tastes of civilized 
 beings. Let us suppose an amateur of this character to 
 possess unlimited authority, that he is in a conquered 
 country with submissive subjects at his feet, and assidu- 
 ous flatterers around him ; he will soon lose his head and 
 think everything allowed him. It was this intoxication 
 of absolute power in an odious nature, joined to an 
 unwholesome admixture of the Roman and the Greek, 
 which, under the Empire, produced Nero. Verres was 
 a sketch for Nero under the Eepublic. 
 
 Happily for Sicily, the Eomans who came to settle 
 there were not all like Verres. To return at last to 
 Virgil, whom we have left too long, there is no doubt 
 that he also was sensible of the beauties of Greek art. 
 Let us be assured that he did not pass through such 
 towns as Selinus, Agrigentum, or Syracuse without 
 lively emotion. He certainly visited their theatres and 
 their temples, and admired the statues and pictures 
 remaining in them after the thefts of the terrible 
 prsetor : but he, at least, was content to admire. We 
 may believe that the memory of the monuments he 
 has seen in Sicily recurred to his thoughts when he 
 
 1
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 197 
 
 had to describe similar edifices. Has he not Agrigentum 
 or Segesta in mind when he talks to us of those temples 
 " that rise upon an ancient rock, with pinnacles upborne 
 by a hundred columns " ? ^ Does not his mind go back 
 to the rich colouring to which I alluded just now 
 when he describes those magnificent roofs sparkling 
 with gold {cmrca teda) ? ^ Yet I am tempted to think 
 that having come to Sicily chiefly to seek repose, he 
 was still more touched by the charms of the climate 
 and the beauties of nature. I imagine that he must 
 have chosen somewhere in a pleasant place, on these 
 mountains sloping to the sea, a solitary dwelling where 
 he could work without distraction at his great epic. 
 Sicily had for him the merit of recalling Greece. 
 While still young, he had expressed in celebrated 
 verses the happiness he should feel in traversing the 
 beautiful valleys of Thessaly or of Thrace, and in 
 seeing the young Spartan maidens bound on the heights 
 
 of Taygeta : 
 
 "0 uhi eampi 
 Sperchiusque, et inrginibus haccata Laccenis 
 Taygeta!" 3 
 
 It is most astonishing that he should not have 
 undertaken this longed-for journey till the last year of 
 his life. Probably Sicily inspired him with patience 
 — Sicily was Greece too, but a Greece nearer to him, 
 more within his reach, and, above all, almost Italian. 
 This was for Virgil a great reason for loving it. Indeed 
 he makes great efibrts to join it to Italy entirely. He 
 
 ^ ^n., III. 84 : " Saxostruda vetusto " ; VII. 170 : " Contum sublime 
 columnis." 
 ^Ibid., VI. 13. ^Georg.y II. 487.
 
 Ids tHE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 affirms that it originally formed part of Italy, and that 
 in reality it belongs to the country, although Greek in 
 appearance and in language. " These parts," he tells 
 us, " were formerly shaken and overwhelmed by deep 
 convulsions. The two lands formed but one, when the 
 furious sea forced itself a passage between them and 
 divided them with its waves. It was thus they became 
 violently separated one from the other, and that a narrow 
 channel ran between these towns and fields, formerly 
 united." ^ Hence Virgil found himself authorised 
 to confound them in his affection, and treat Sicily 
 like the rest of Italy. The origin of the two countries 
 being the same, he could well give it a place in the 
 national poem, which was to contain all the traditions 
 and all the glories of the Italian fatherland. This 
 place, as we are about to see from his poem, was very 
 large, and only Latium has a greater one. Sicily 
 fills one entire Book of the yEneid, and nearly half of 
 a second. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE THIRD BOOK OF THE JENEW — ^NEAS IN EPIRUS — HE 
 TOUCHES AT ITALY — TARENTUM — HE PASSES INTO 
 SICILY — ^TNA — THE ISLE OF ORTIGIA — THE FOUNTAIN 
 OF ARETHUSA — AGRIGENTUM — WHAT VIRGIL's FEEL- 
 INGS MUST HAVE BEEN WHEN HE WENT OVER THE 
 RUINS OF GREEK CITIES IN SICILY — DREPANUM — 
 DEATH OF ANCHISES. 
 
 The Third Book of the j^neid shows us ^neas seek- 
 ing a new abode. The poet tells us that after escaping 
 
 » .En., III. 414.
 
 i*:NEAS IN SICILY. 199 
 
 from Troy, he took refuge in the high valleys of Ida, 
 where he passed a season in resting from his fatigues 
 and preparing for his voyage. He then starts, without 
 well knowing whither he is going. He has resolved to 
 be guided by the oracles, but oracles, as we know, are 
 not always very clear, and it is not easy to understand 
 them. They advise ^neas to withdraw to Hesperia, 
 that is to say, the regions of the west. This is a very 
 vague expression, which shows him approximatively the 
 direction he is to follow, but does not tell him the 
 precise spot he must stop at. Even when the prophetess 
 Cassandra talks to him about Latium and the Tiber, 
 their names, quite unknown to an inhabitant of Asia 
 Minor, do not teach him much. As for the other 
 direction, that he must return to the land whence came 
 his forefathers, it would have been necessary, in order 
 that it should suffice him, for him to thoroughly know 
 the history of his most remote ancestors, and we see 
 that the memory of them was lost. It is not surprising 
 that having so imperfect a knowledge of the country 
 whither the gods ordered him to go, he should have 
 so often lost his way. Thus it happens that, after 
 many mistakes, a wind sent by Providence blows 
 him into the Adriatic, opposite Italy, and then impels 
 him into the Gulf of Leucate; that is to say, to the very 
 spot where the battle of Actium was fought. One 
 might be tempted to think that Virgil had invented 
 this incident, which allowed him to connect the fortunes 
 of -^neas with those of Augustus. But this is not so, 
 for the legend was much older than those of Augustus 
 or Virgil, since Varro had related it. But of course the 
 poet turns it to great account. He is happy to take
 
 200 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the Trojan hero to the shores where his great descendant 
 is to gain the victory that will make him master of the 
 world, to show him to us stopping there with satisfaction, 
 foreseeing confusedly, and by a kind of divination, the 
 great destinies for which these places are reserved, and 
 already celebrating with his followers games that seem 
 to foreshadow and prepare those which the great 
 Emperor will establish after the defeat of Antony. 
 
 From Actium ^neas repairs to Epirus, where he 
 finds Andromache again, with Helenus, her new 
 husband. Helenus is a very skilful seer, and as JEneas 
 never misses an occasion to inquire the will of the gods, 
 he takes great care to consult him. It is from him he 
 learns with some clearness the road he must follow. 
 The Fates order him to bear his gods into Italy, but the 
 part of Italy in which he must settle is not that seen 
 opposite Epirus. He must skirt the coasts of Calabria, 
 " his oars nmst beat the waves of the Sicilian sea," he 
 must visit Campania, and he must see closely the rock 
 of Circe, before he can reach that peaceful shore where 
 he is to fix his dwelling. This time --rEueas is very 
 clearly directed, and " when he spreads the wings of his 
 sails to the breath of the winds," he knows where he is 
 going and the road that will take him to the goal of his 
 enterprise. 
 
 It is on this journey that we are about to follow him. 
 
 But, it may be asked, are these poetic fictions to be 
 taken seriously ? Must we accompany the hero of a 
 legend step by step, try to find places to which he 
 never went, and take the trouble to draw up a regular 
 plan of his wanderings, as if real travels were in ques- 
 tion ? Why not ? Ancient poets love to put reason
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 201 
 
 into fancy, and give to fable the colouring of truth. 
 When we read them, good sense has only a single 
 concession to make. It must accept the fictitious per- 
 sonage presented to it, and the marvellous premises of 
 the tale it is about to hear ; that done, we enter the 
 domain of reality, and do not leave it again. This 
 imaginary hero will now, on the whole, only do reason- 
 able things, and his existence will usually unfold itself 
 under the ordinary conditions of human life. This 
 manner of introducing truth into the legend, and satisfy- 
 ing imagination and good sense at the same time, is one 
 of the greatest charms of ancient poetry. Let us then 
 follow ^neas without repugnance, and be convinced 
 that Virgil is about to describe perfectly real landscapes 
 to us, and that the greater part of the time he will only 
 depict what he has himself seen. 
 
 J^neas must first pass from the shores of Epirus to 
 those of Italy. There is a narrow arm of the sea to cross, 
 a few hours' passage, which would be mere child's play 
 for a vessel of our days. But then pilots did not dare 
 to leave the shore. We must see the precautions taken 
 by the pilot of ^neas before risking himself amid the 
 floods, and daring to lose sight of the land. " Night, 
 led by the hours, had not yet reached the middle of the 
 sky, when watchful Palinurus rises, inquires of all the 
 winds, and lends his ear to the least breath. He 
 observes the stars which glide through silent space : 
 Arcturus, Hyades, the two Bears, Orion, with his sword 
 of gold. Then, when he sees that all is calm in the 
 tranquil sky, from the height of the poop he gives the 
 signal of departure." ^ The voyage is accomplished 
 
 ' ^En., III. 512.
 
 202 THK COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 without accident. At the first rays of morn, the 
 Trojans see before them a promontory crowned by a 
 temple, and at the foot of the hill a natural port open 
 towards the east, where they shelter their ships.^ Here 
 it is that yEneas for the first time touches Italian 
 soil. He piously salutes it, but, true to the orders 
 received from Helenus, he only remains there a few 
 hours, and then continues his way, skirting the coast. 
 
 " Then," he adds in his rapid recital, " we arrive at 
 the entrance of the Gulf of Tarentum. From the other 
 side rises the temple of Juno Sacinia ; further on 
 Gaulon and Squalan are seen, fruitful in wrecks."^ That 
 is all, and three lines suffice him to depict all the coast 
 of Apulia and Calabria — that is to say, one of the most 
 beautiful landscapes of Italy. I think it must have cost 
 him something to be so moderate. Had he not resolved 
 to sacrifice everything to the unity of his work, he 
 would have found it difficult not to dwell with pleasure 
 upon this beautiful land, and his Muse would willingly 
 have lingered there awhile ; but he belonged to a severe 
 school, who made it a law to abridge needless descrip- 
 tions. So he resigned himself to saying nothing of the 
 famous cities that decked this coast ; nothing of Sybaris, 
 whose luxury was so renowned in antiquity; nothing 
 of Crotona, where lived Pythagorus ; nothing of ]\Ieta- 
 poutum, where he died. He has only made an excep- 
 tion for Tarentum, and even here he only mentions 
 its name, which is strange, if one remembers the im- 
 
 ^ The description is so exact that the place meant by Virgil was 
 recognised without difliculty. It is the little village of Castro, a 
 few leagues from Otranto, not far from the promontory of Japagia, 
 now called Santa Maria di Leuca. 
 
 - j-En., III. 550.
 
 JlNEAS IN SICILY. ^05 
 
 portance it then had, and the place it held in the life 
 of some rich Eomans. Tarentum had become one of 
 the summer haunts they preferred, although it had the 
 inconvenience of being at a great distance from Eome. 
 But when a generation of the bored is attacked by a 
 mania for travelling, and feels a need to leave home 
 and business during a part of the year, it does not 
 usually long remain faithful to the spots wherein it 
 goes to seek repose. Like all remedies, they soon 
 cease to be efficacious, and no longer cure it of tedium. 
 Others must then be sought, possessing the charm of 
 novelty ; and it generally chooses them farther off, and 
 less accessible than the others, in order that they may 
 render the pleasure of changing place more keen. 
 For a loner time the great lords of Eome were content 
 to reside at Tusculum or Veii, when they desired to 
 refresh themselves from the fatigues of political 
 life. Then they went a little further — to Praneste, to 
 Tibur, and afterwards, when all Italy was conquered, 
 to Naples, to Baia, to Cuma3, to Pompeii, which was 
 indeed a journey. At the point of time we have arrived 
 at, Baia seemed to many of these disgusted ones a spot 
 too hackneyed, and almost vulgar ; and in order to get 
 further off, they fled as far as Tarentum. It must 
 be owned that " soft Tarentum " deserved the pains 
 people took to get to it. Horace was right when he 
 said that nothing in the world seemed to him prefer- 
 able to this corner of earth : — 
 
 " Ille terrarum mihi j)rKter omnes 
 Angulus ridet." ^ 
 
 ^ Carm., II. 6, 19.
 
 204 THE COtJNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGTL. 
 
 It was a town of delights, made as if expressly to be 
 the favourite sojourn of an Epicurean/ and which, 
 rocked by the waves and perfumed by the odour of 
 its gardens, had for the last century been finally and 
 gently dying out in idleness and pleasure. It is placed 
 between two seas. On the one side is the gulf bearing 
 its name which ^]neas crossed when sailing towards 
 Sicily ; on the ^ other, a vast interior lake, 50 kilo- 
 metres round, only communicating with the gulf by a 
 narrow cutting, and which the tongue of land the city 
 is built on shelters from tempests. In bad weather 
 nothing is more interesting than the contrast between 
 the troubled and the tranquil waves. While in the direc- 
 tion of the high sea one beholds storm-beaten ships, in 
 the interior sea little tishing-boats go quietly about, 
 casting or raising their nets.^ A little further on a 
 vast plain lies spread out, devoid of great landscape fea- 
 tures, but rich and smiling, such as the ancients loved. 
 It rises little by little towards the mountains that 
 shut it in to the north, and whence descend the 
 little streams which throw themselves into the sea, 
 after scattering a little freshness on their way. One 
 of these is the Galesus, sung by Virgil in his Gcorgics — 
 for Virgil, like Horace, was a frequenter of Tarentum. 
 It is impossible to forget the picture he draws us of 
 that good old man wlio, in happy spots " where black 
 Galesus winds through meadows gold with grain," ^ 
 
 1 Cicero, Ad/am., VII. 12. 
 
 - Even in antiquity the Marc piccolo had the character of an incom- 
 parable fishing-ground. Horace tells us that gourmets held the shell- 
 fish of Tarentum in high esteem : PecHnibtis paiulis jactat se inolle 
 Tarentum. — Sat. II. 4, 34. 
 
 ^ Gcorcj., IV. 126.
 
 iENEAS IN SICILY. 205 
 
 clears a few acres of abandoned land. After sowing 
 there amid the brambles squares of vegetables, sur- 
 rounded by a border of lilies, vervain, and poppies, and 
 planted a few elms and plane trees to shelter his rustic 
 table, he thinks himself equal to a king, because he culls 
 first of all men the rose in spring, and fruits in autumn. 
 It is in this charming passage of the Georgics that we 
 must seek the impression made on Virgil by Tarentum. 
 In the u^neid, as his hero does not stop there, he has 
 not thought fit to stop there either, and contents him- 
 self with mentioning the name. But he was quite 
 sure that the name would suggest to his readers 
 memories which I would fain recall by the way. 
 
 In the meantime ^neas continues to skirt the coasts 
 of Calabria. Having reached the extremity of the 
 peninsula, and passed the last promontory, " Capo 
 Spartivento," he suddenly perceives a magnificent 
 spectacle. It is Sicily, whose coasts he beholds 
 receding in the distance, and, above all, ^tna rising 
 before him. ^tna holds a great place in the admira- 
 tion and curiosity of the ancients. It is known, how- 
 ever, that they were not very sensible to the beauties 
 of wild sites. The glaciers dismayed them, and they 
 seem never to have brought themselves to examine the 
 Alps closely, so loath are they to speak of them. But 
 .^tna, placed in the very heart of a country they loved 
 to visit, forced itself on their atteuLion. It too often 
 met their sight, and was the theatre of phenomena too 
 terror-striking for them possibly to be silent about it. 
 And this is why, in spite of their preference for calm 
 and reposeful landscapes, they busied themselves a 
 great deal about the terrible mountain. There were
 
 206 THE COUNTIIY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 then, as in our clays, very many tourists who risked the 
 ascent ; Strabo, who tells us so, invoked their testimony 
 several times.^ They started from the little town of 
 ^tna, as we do now from Nicolosi. They rose pain- 
 fully through a desolate region, across cinders and 
 snow, to the approaches of the summit. Along the 
 way they sometimes witnessed singular spectacles. 
 Priests bending over the mouths of the volcano made 
 sacrifices, or, by the aid of various practices, sought to 
 divine the future. Nearly arrived at the end of the 
 journey, some superstitious persons stopped, seized by 
 a kind of sudden terror. They feared, by finishing the 
 journey, to surprise secrets whose knowledge the gods 
 reserved to themselves. Others, more daring, went for- 
 ward as far as it was possible to go. The more truthful 
 relate that it was almost impossible to reach the brink 
 of the crater, to which access was barred by smoke and 
 flame. However, their accounts seldom agree. Strabo 
 infers from that that the top of the volcano must not 
 always wear the same aspect, and that, doubtless, each 
 eruption changes its form. The testimony of modern 
 travellers quite confirms this opinion. 
 
 Another kind of curiosity very conceivable in people 
 who were so often the witnesses or the victims of the 
 fury of yEtna was to inquire, and, if possible, discover, 
 its cause. How can it be that at certain moments 
 showers of cinders cover the mountains, and rivers of 
 lava flow down to the sea ? As was natural, the reasons 
 first given were borrowed from mythology. It was the 
 vanquished of the great battles of Olympus, whom the 
 
 ^ Strabo, VI. 2, 8, aud the poem of JEtna.
 
 .BNEAS IN SICILY. 207 
 
 triumphant gods had hurled into the abyss. It was 
 Typhon, it was Enceladus, it was the fabled giants 
 pressed down by the heavy mountains, aod whose 
 breasts, crushed'by the weight, vomited flames. " Every 
 time," says Virgil, " they turn their weary sides, the 
 whole of Sicily trembles and roars, and the sky is 
 veiled in smoke." ^ These poetic and childish explana- 
 tions, with which ^neas contents himself, did not 
 always suffice. A century after Virgil, a writer, appar- 
 ently belonging to the bold school of Seneca, an enemy 
 of the ancient traditions, sought to give another reason 
 more serious and more learned.^ He supposes that the 
 waters of the sea engulf themselves in the depths of 
 -^tna by underground cavities, while the wind pene- 
 trates it by other openings. Once in, they naturally 
 meet in these narrow passages, and, clashing together, 
 have terrible struggles which make the earth tremble, 
 and when at last they find some issue they escape in 
 a tempest of flames. Such is the system somewhat 
 heavily expounded by the poet in a poem of more than 
 600 lines. He does not quite guarantee its certainty, 
 and more often gives it as an hypothesis. However, he 
 is very pleased to develop it, since it exonerates him 
 from believing in the mythological fictions. He is a 
 freethinker, very proud of being so, who abuses his 
 unfortunate brethren much, when they venture to talk 
 of Enceladus or of Vulcan, and who for his part pro- 
 
 i III. 581. 
 
 - It is thought, although it is not certain, to have been Lucilius, to 
 ■n-hom Seneca addressed his famous letters. He was intendant of 
 Sicily, and while sojourning there bad an opportunity of studying 
 
 MtUA,
 
 208 THE COUNTKY OF IIOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 fesses only to care for the truth, in vero mihi cura} 
 But in spite of this bragging, he is at heart only a timid 
 freethinker, ill weaned from those fabulous stories he 
 laughs at, and who commits the very weaknesses with 
 which he sternly reproaches others. Before beginning 
 his poem he invokes Apollo, under the pretext that 
 " this god heljis us to walk with more assurance in 
 unknown ways ; " - and in order to make us understand 
 the terrible beauty of the eruptions of -^tna, he 
 seriously tells us that " Jupiter himself admires from 
 afar the jets of flame, and fears that the giants are 
 thinking of taking the field again, or that Pluto, dis- 
 contented with his share, desires to exchange hell for 
 heaven." ^ This poet, so well pleased with himself, 
 seems to me the faithful image of the society in the 
 midst of which he lived, and which was wrought by 
 contrary instincts. Sceptical and believing, at the 
 same time mocking and devout, it laughed at the old 
 gods and looked around everywhere for new ones. 
 
 However rapid the voyage of ^neas, it was impos- 
 sible for ^tna not to arrest his attention for a moment. 
 Virgil was therefore obliged to describe it. He does so 
 in a few lines, in which he represents it at times 
 launching into the air clouds of smoke mixed with 
 burning cinders, and flames that touch the stars, and 
 at others vomiting calcined stones and melted rocks, 
 while the mountain boils down to the deepest of its 
 
 abyss : 
 
 " Horrificis juxta tonat ^'Etna minis, 
 Interdumque atram 'prorumjnt ad ccthera mcbem. 
 Turbine fumantem 2nceo et candente favilla, 
 
 ' ^t7ia, 90. ■■^ Ibid., 8. » Ibid., 200.
 
 J^NEAS IN SICILY. 209 
 
 Aitollitque globos flaminarum et sidera lambit : 
 Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis 
 Erigit eructans, liquefadaque saxa sub auras 
 Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque excestuat imo." ^ 
 
 These sonorous and brilliant lines were from the 
 very first appreciated by connoisseurs, and cited in the 
 schools as a finished model of description, so much so 
 that Seneca, not a partial judge, declared that he had 
 nothing to find fault with in it or to add to it.^ Yet a 
 critic of the second century, usually very respectful of 
 established reputations and received opinions, took it 
 into his head to protest against this general admiration. 
 He pointed out many weaknesses in this so - called 
 masterpiece, and concluded that it was one of those 
 passages which the author would have recomposed if 
 he had had time, and whose imperfection tormented 
 him on his death-bed. This is doubtless a great exag- 
 geration, and Scalager had no trouble in proving that 
 the famous passage contains many fine lines. For my 
 own part, I might be tempted to think them per- 
 haps too fine. One perceives that the poet seeks 
 effective expressions and piles up hyperboles. If I 
 must say all I think, I, like Aulu-Gelle, find a little 
 verbosity and eftbrt in it.^ It is not Virgil's fault, but 
 .^tna was here in question. The poet felt himself 
 grappling with an important, difficult subject that 
 absorbed people's imaginations, and overdid himself a 
 little, in order to fulfil public expectation. 
 
 ^neas is too prudent to remain long at the foot of 
 JEtna. Besides, he has to avoid the anger of the 
 
 1 III. 571. ■ Sen., EpisL, 79, 5. 
 
 3 Aulu-Gelle, XVII. 10 : In strepitu sonituque verhorujn laborat. 
 

 
 210 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Cyclops, who are the inhabitants of the country," and 
 of Polyphemus, their chief, who would like to avenge 
 upon him the harm done him by Ulysses. So he starts 
 again as soon as possible. The Trojan ships pass quite 
 close to these immense blocks of lava near Aci Castello, 
 which were flung into the sea by the volcano. The 
 people call them " scugli de' Ciclojn," and suppose them to 
 be fragments of rock hurled by Polyphemus after the 
 escaping Ulysses. For my part, when I viewed their 
 dark mass covered by white foam from afar, and domi- 
 nating the waves by more than 60 metres, I thought 
 I had the Cyclops themselves before my eyes, advanc- 
 ing into the sea in pursuit of ^Eneas. " We see them 
 erect," says Virgil, " threatening us with their fierce 
 eyes, and raising their proud heads to the heavens. 
 Fearful assemblage ! {concilium liorrendum !) " ^ ^neas 
 escapes, thanks to his oars. ^Etna recedes little by 
 little on the liorizon ; Pantagia is passed ; the Gulf of 
 Miegara and of Thassus " prostrated to the sun ; " ^ and 
 they only stop a little further on, " at the spot where 
 an island advances into the sea of Sicily, opposite Plem- 
 myrium, watered on all sides by the waves. This isle 
 bears a name illustrious in history ; the first inhabitants 
 called it Ortygia." It is here that Syracuse began. 
 Later on, the immense town overflowed upon the con- 
 tinent. It advanced, without stopping, into the plain as 
 far as the heights of the P^pipohe, and to the fort of Eury- 
 alus; but the island always remained the lieart and 
 centre of the great city. Hieron had built his palace 
 there; Denys crowded it with magnificent monuments; 
 1 . 
 
 ^ .^Sn,, III. 688. ^ Ibid., 689 : Thapsumqw jacenlem.
 
 .^NEAS IN SICILY. 211 
 
 and it was the residence of the Homau prtetors. Now 
 the entire city, like Tarentum, is included within its 
 ancient acropolis. There, imprisoned on all sides by 
 the waves, defended by the bastions of Charles the 
 Fifth, with its narrow streets, its old houses, its monu- 
 mental windows, it carries the traveller some centuries 
 backward, and gives him the pleasure of forgetting for 
 a moment the trivialities of modern towns. Of all 
 these curiosities, Virgil only mentions one — that which 
 Syracuse owes to Nature, and which must have been 
 with her from all time. This is the fountain of 
 Arethusa, about which the Greeks told so many 
 wonderful tales. We may well think that pious 
 ^neas, hurried though he be, stops on this shore to 
 offer his prayers at the sacred spring. Modern travel- 
 lers do as he did, nor fail in passing to go and see 
 Arethusa. A few years since they underwent a great 
 disillusion in visiting it. It was then very much 
 neglected, and the women of the town, who did not at 
 all resemble Nausicaa, used to come without ceremony 
 and wash their clothes there. It has since been repaired 
 and we see it in about the same condition as it was 
 in the time of Virgil. It is a semicircular basin, in 
 which papyrus grows, and which a narrow jetty separ- 
 ates from the sea. It is filled with limpid water, and 
 contains fish of all kinds and aquatic birds of every 
 colour in abundance. The day I visited it the sirocco 
 blew violently, and the waves broke foaming against 
 the shore. I had truly a legendary scene before my 
 eyes : Neptune, furious against a poor nymph who 
 resisted him, trying to force the quiet refuge 
 whither she had retired. I must say that Arethusa
 
 212 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 did not appear at all troubled by this uproar. While 
 the sea raged, the fishes continued to swim after the 
 bits of bread which children threw them, and the 
 swans sailed gravely among the tufts of papyrus. Yet 
 when I heard the dull noise of the billows, and saw the 
 plumes of foam rising above the jetty, I could not help 
 fearing that the sea would prove the stronger. Looking 
 at the narrow tongue of land by which the sacred spring 
 is protected, I trembled for it, and was tempted to 
 repeat the cry of Virgil : 
 
 " Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam ! " ^ 
 
 On leavnig Ortygia, Virgil passes the promontory of 
 Pachinum, one of the three which give Sicily its form. 
 He then skirts all the coast parallel to the shores 
 of Africa, on which the Greeks had planted their 
 colonies. It was a country illustrious among all, and 
 had held a great place in the history of humanity. But 
 yEneas passes quickly by it. He tells us he is impelled 
 by a favourable wind, and he must profit by it to go 
 whither the gods send him. He has only time to point 
 out a few of the towns he sees in passing. There is 
 Camarina, Gela, Agrigentum, " which rises on the 
 height, and shows the traveller its vast ramparts " ; 
 there is Selinus, with its belt of palms ; there, 
 finally, is Lilybteum, " which liides beneath its waves 
 perfidious rocks." In these rapidly composed lines, I 
 see notliing to retain but the picture of Agrigentum : 
 ^^ Arduus inde Acrctgas ostcntat maxima longc 
 Mcenia." - 
 
 Kuins still remain of those immense walls that sur- 
 1 Egl, X. 5. = ^n., III. 703.
 
 .ENEAS IN SICILY. 213 
 
 prised Virgil ; and beside large blocks of stone overthrown 
 
 by time we may see a series of temples, half destroyed, 
 
 which, when they were intact, formed a sort of crown 
 
 to the ramparts. The effect must have been striking 
 
 when there were seen from below : first a line of temples 
 
 and walls, and then the town, with its admirable edifices 
 
 mounting stepwise to the rock of Minerva (Btipe 
 
 Athence) and to the acropolis. Virgil's verse gives 
 
 us a sufficiently good idea of this spectacle, and the 
 
 precision of his description shows us that he had 
 
 Agrigentum before his eyes when he wrote. He seems 
 
 to have cared little to know whether at the time of 
 
 the Trojan War it was as he described it. This was 
 
 a point to trouble an historian or an archaeologist, and 
 
 touched him little. Some rigorous critics have blamed 
 
 him for this, while others have sought to defend him, by 
 
 saying that, in fact, Agrigentum was not founded until 
 
 several centuries after the voyage of -^neas ; but that 
 
 there was already, upon the spot where the Greek city 
 
 was to rise, a little town of Sicilians, and that the poet 
 
 means to speak of the latter, though he gives them the 
 
 name of the former. This dispute is of little importance ; 
 
 but here we are at any rate certain that Virgil visited 
 
 what in his day remained of the Greek cities along the 
 
 African sea. They could not have been in quite the same 
 
 state as that in which we see them to-day. Camarina 
 
 and Gela had not entirely disappeared, and the columns 
 
 of the Temple of Selinus did not strew the ground. 
 
 Yet Strabo plainly states " that the coast extending 
 
 from Cape Pachinum to Lilybseum is deserted, and 
 
 that one finds but few remains of the settlements 
 
 which the Greeks established there." We should like
 
 214 TliE COUNTRY OF HORACE AN^D VIRGIL. 
 
 to know the effect they produced upon Virgil, and 
 the thoughts that arose in his mind as he passed 
 through the streets of these abandoned cities, and 
 wandered in those large empty spaces whence life 
 had witlidrawn. He has nowhere told us so, yet I do not 
 think it would be rash to imagine them. He called up 
 before his eyes the history of these unhappy cities, torn 
 by factions, passing from extreme liberty to the hardest 
 servitude, always ready in their domestic quarrels to 
 invoke the aid of the foreigner, and destroying each 
 other without pity. He doubtless said to himself that 
 a nation is not made solely to build admirable monu- 
 ments, to have musicians, sculptors, painters, poets ; 
 that, above all, it must be capable of wisdom, modera- 
 tion, and discipline, and that it must know how to con- 
 duct itself, to keep peace within, and live on terms of 
 amity with its neighbours. Then his mind reverted to 
 his own country, so poor in art and literature ; and I 
 suppose that he must have felt reconciled to this 
 inferiority when he saw it possess in such a high 
 degree the political qualities whose absence had ruined 
 the Greeks : respect for authority, the acquiescence in 
 leadership, forgetfulness of private quarrels in face of 
 a public enemy, and strict union of the citizens for a 
 common purpose. ■■ It seemed to him then that, however 
 great the glory of Greece, Eorae in other respects could 
 bear comparison with her, and that it was surely a great 
 nation which, by knowing how to govern itself, had be- 
 come worthy to govern the world. This is the sentiment 
 expressed by him with admirable brilliancy in those 
 lines of the Sixth Book, which some critics, I know 
 not why, have reproached him with. " Others will
 
 ^NEAS IX SICILY. 215 
 
 know better how to animate bronze and make it supple, 
 to cut living figures in marble ; and they will speak 
 more eloquently. Thou, Eoman, remember that it is 
 thy glory to command the universe, to force the nations 
 to keep peace, to spare the vanquished, to humble the 
 proud — these are the arts which thou must cultivate." 
 
 ^^ Exctident alii sjnrantia mollivs cera .... 
 Tu regere imperio pojndos, Romane, memento !" > 
 
 I cannot but think that, in visiting the ruins of 
 the Greek cities of Sicily, the contrast between 
 the two countries, between their contrary qualities 
 and their different destinies, must have struck Virgil 
 more forcibly, and that it inspired these beautiful 
 lines. 
 
 We have now come to the end of Eneas' first voyage 
 in Sicily. From Lilybaeum he directs his course 
 " towards the sad shore of Drepanum," ^ and there, at 
 the moment when he thinks the end of his labours is 
 approaching, he loses his father. The legend fixed the 
 burial-place of Anchises in different spots, and his tomb 
 was shown in almost all the countries where the Trojans 
 
 1 ^71. , V. 848. 
 
 - III. 707 : Drepani illcetabilis ora. Does he only call it so 
 because he lost his father there ? Commentators bid us remark that 
 this coast is marshy and sterile. For the ancients it had been a 
 desolate country ever since the combat between Eryx and Hercules, 
 and it long kept this appearance. Now everything is in a state of 
 transformation. In the lower part, salt-pits have been established 
 which seem very flourishing, and the surrounding plain is becoming 
 covered with new houses. Near the port of Trapani an attempt has 
 even been made to plant a garden, whose trees coiffageously resist the 
 north-west wind which bends their heads.
 
 216 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 had stopped. Virgil was therefore free to make him die 
 as he liked. It was to his purpose to let him accompany 
 his son as long as possible, since it suited him to place 
 at the side of the pious ^neas a kind of interpreter of 
 the gods, to explain their oracles and communicate 
 their will. But he could not keep him any longer 
 without serious inconvenience. We have just got to 
 the moment when a tempest is about to throw ^neas 
 on the coast of Africa, where he will meet with the 
 hospitality of Dido, and pass the whole of a long 
 winter in pleasure.^ AVhat kind of a tigure would 
 the virtuous Anchises have made in the midst of this 
 amorous adventure ? He could not have prevented it, 
 since the gods consented, nor permitted it witliout com- 
 promising the dignity of his character : so it was better 
 for him to be absent. Virgil therefore lets him 
 opportunely vanish. 
 
 After his father's death, ^neas leaves Sicily, though 
 not for ever. He is to return a few months later, on 
 his flight from Carthage, and sojourn there during the 
 whole of the Fifth Book. 
 
 IV. 
 
 RETURN OF .TINEAS TO SICILY — FIFTH BOOK OF THE jENEID 
 — MOUNT ERYX — TExMPLE OF VENUS ERYCINA — 
 FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF ANCHISES — COURSE 
 OF THE SHIPS — BURNING OF THE FLEET— SEGESTA — 
 DEPARTURE OF ^NEAS FOR ITALY. 
 
 It has often been remarked that the Fifth Book of 
 
 the yEneid is not very closely connected with the rest of 
 
 , * 
 
 * JEn., IV. 193 : Hiemen luxtt, quamlonga fovere.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 217 
 
 the poem. It might be suppressed without loss, if not 
 to the charm of the work, at least to the development 
 of the action. We have nothing but ceremonies and 
 spectacles, and the desperate struggle of a man to accom- 
 plish a divine mission against adverse divinities, which 
 is the subject of the ^neid, seems to rest for a while. 
 -/Eneas, obeying the orders of Jupiter, has just 
 abandoned Dido, and is steering towards Italy. 
 Suddenly the breeze freshens, and the pilot, who soon 
 gets frightened, declares that he dares not continue his 
 course with so threatening a sky. The prudent ^neas 
 easily allows himself to be moved by these misgivings, 
 and consents to stop on his way. Sicily is near. It is 
 a beloved country, ruled over by a Trojan, old Acestus, 
 and contains the tomb of Anchises. It is nearly a 
 year since Anchises died; and as the opportunity is 
 offered of celebrating this anniversary, it must be taken 
 advantage of. 
 
 Here then is the Trojan fleet returned to the port of 
 Brepanum. The part of Sicily where ^-Eneas stops 
 has not had quite the same lot as the rest of the isle. 
 It early escaped the Greek domination, and was 
 occupied by the Carthaginians, who were its masters 
 for more than two centuries. It is clear that this long 
 sojourn of the Semites must have exercised some 
 influence over the ancient inhabitants, although it 
 is now difficult to distinguish it. After the first 
 resistance, the Greeks of this part of the country had 
 to come to an understanding with the conquerors, in 
 spite of the differences of manner and of race, and it 
 was arranged to live together, as the Sicilians and 
 Arabs agreed to do in the Middle Ages. A tepera
 
 218 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 preserved in the museum of Palermo represents on one 
 side two hands clasped together, and on the other 
 bears an inscription which informs us that Imilcon 
 Hannibal, son of Imilcon, has made a pact of hospitality 
 with Lison, son of Diogenetes, and his descendants.^ 
 Contracts of this kind could not have been uncommon 
 between the two peoples. It is also probable that the 
 conquerors, although their minds were not turned that 
 way, did not entirely resist the seduction of Greek art. 
 When they took Segesta, they carried off a bronze 
 statue of Diana which passed for a masterpiece. 
 "Transported into Africa," says Cicero, "the goddess 
 only exchanged altars and adorers. Her honours 
 followed her into this new abode, and thanks to her 
 incomparable beauty, she found again among the 
 enemy the worship she had received at Segesta." ^ 
 Carthage dominated in all the western part of Sicily ; 
 but in order not to weaken herself by scattering her 
 forces, she had fixed herself strongly in three important 
 cities : at Lilybieum (Marsala), at Drepanum (Trapani^, 
 and at Panormos (Palermo). Above Drepanum, in the 
 centre of the coast occupied by the Carthaginians, rises 
 Eryx (now Monte San-Juliano), which they had 
 made one of their chief citadels. We must first go 
 over it and describe it, for all the action of the Fifth 
 Book takes place around this mountain. 
 
 The reputation of ]\Iount Eryx was very great in 
 ancient tiroes. Altliough it barely rises 800 metres above 
 the sea, and although there is in Sicily many a peak, 
 
 ' Salinas, Ouida del irivsen di Palermo, p. 40. 
 - II., Verr., IV. 83.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 219 
 
 without counting ^tna, greatly exceeding it in height, 
 it is of so fine a form, so regularly cut, so well posed, 
 and is seen from all sides to so much advantage, that 
 its name occurs of itself to Virgil when he wants to 
 give us the idea of a high mountain : Quantus Athos 
 aut quantus Eryx ! ^ Access to it is now easy. A 
 fine winding road leads to Trapani, and the summit is 
 reached in three or four hours. One is surprised to find 
 there certainly one of the most curious little towns 
 that can be seen. Shut in by solid walls which go 
 back to the most remote times, defended by towers and 
 bastions, San Juliano contains nearly four thousand 
 inhabitants within its gates. The town has an antique 
 and severe look, and very little has been done to 
 improve it. As we pass through these narrow steep 
 streets, bordered by little houses with low doors and 
 few windows, we feel the bitter north-east wind that 
 blows even on the finest days, and reflect that in 
 winter the weather here must often be very rigorous, 
 and we ask ourselves how men could have been tempted 
 to place their dwellihg so high. Yet this spot must have 
 been peopled very early in the world's history, for 
 remains of flint weapons have been found here, proving 
 that it had inhabitants before the use of metals was 
 known. An isolated mountain, easy to defend, whose 
 foundations are planted in the sea, and which is provided 
 at its summit with inexhaustible springs of water, offered 
 a sure asylum to those who wished to place their lives 
 and fortunes beyond danger of sudden attack. Later on 
 
 i^n., XII. 701.
 
 220 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 it served as a fortress to all the conquerors of Sicily, 
 and the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Piomans 
 disputed its possession with fury. Its inhabitants were 
 more numerous tlian ever amidst the violence of the 
 Middle Ages, and it is then that, in order to make room 
 for them, the houses had to be crowded together one 
 upon the other, as we see them. Now, when men can 
 live without danger in the plain, the mountain is gradu- 
 ally becoming depopulated, and the time is not far 
 distant when the almost deserted little town will only 
 be frequented by the curious who visit the country in 
 search of memorials of antiquity. 
 
 What chiefly draws them hither is the renown of the 
 famous Temple of Venus which formerly crowned the 
 mountain. They will no longer find it. The temple has 
 perished entirely, and it is scarcely possible to do more 
 than recognise its site. A little above San Juliano 
 extends a broad plateau, reached by a small walk 
 planted with trees and bordered with flowers. This 
 plateau must originally have been very narrow. It was 
 increased in extent by enormous Substructions, which 
 sometimes sink very low, and rest on projections^ of 
 the rock. Works of this kind were frequent among the 
 ancients, who did not recoil from any labour in order 
 to fix the bases of their edifices solidly. But this one 
 struck even the ancients themselves by its vast propor- 
 tions, and, not knowing its architect, they attributed it 
 to Dsedalus, the legendary artist, just as we sometimes 
 talk about monuments being Cyclopean. These kinds 
 of expressions teach nothing, but they are convenient to 
 disguise ignorance. We are now farther advanced than 
 the ancients, and we can say what people built at least
 
 .ENEAS IN SICILY. 221 
 
 the lower layers of these immense walls. M. Salinas, a 
 distinguished Palermitan archteologist, has discovered 
 that the large blocks of stone on which the walls rest 
 bear letters, and that these letters are Phoenician.^ We 
 have thus a proof that the first works to fix the founda- 
 tion of the temple and of the town were carried out by 
 the Carthaginians. But we have just seen that Mount 
 Eryx was peopled long before their arrival in Sicily, 
 and there is nothing to prevent us from believing that on 
 the site on which they raised their sumptuous buildings, 
 there already existed a modest sanctuary built by the 
 old inhabitants. And this confirms Virgil's account in 
 every respect. He shows, on the approach of ^neas, 
 the people of the country, who from the top of the 
 mountain have their eyes fixed upon the sea, observing 
 from afar the unknown guests whom the waves are 
 bringing them. He depicts them as rough and half 
 savage, as they must have been, "holding javelins in 
 their hands, and covered with the skin of a Libyan 
 bear." 2 As for the old sanctuary which preceded 
 the Phoenician temple, he attributes its foundation 
 to iEneas himself. At the moment of leaving, "the 
 hero," he tells us, " on the crown of Eryx raises to 
 Venus, his mother, a sacred habitation near the stars." 
 
 The divinity of Eryx had the advantage of being 
 recognised and honoured by all the peoples who navi- 
 gated the shores of the Mediterranean. Under differ- 
 ent names, the Phoenican, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman 
 sailors paid homage to a goddess of the sea, whom they 
 
 ^ Salinas, Le murafenicie di Erice, an extract from Notizie degli scavi 
 April 1883, 
 
 - ^n. , V. 35, et seq.
 
 222 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 called on iu times of danger, and to whom they believed 
 they owed their safety. Whether they named her 
 Astarte, Aphrodite, or Venus, she was in fact the same 
 for all. They gave her the same attributes ; they acknow- 
 ledged in her the same power. In her sanctuary on 
 Eryx there were found, side by side with Greek and 
 Latin inscriptions, ex-votos in which Phoenicians or 
 Carthaginians put themselves under the protection of 
 Astarte, " who gives long life." As all equally honoured 
 the goddess, it came to pass that, in spite of their furious 
 rivalries, her temple was never laid waste, and went un- 
 harmed through these terrible wars in which the com- 
 batants allowed themselves every license. This happy 
 fortune augmented the credit enjoyed by it among the 
 devout. It was the more extraordinary from the circum- 
 stance that the Temple of Eryx was considered i3ne of 
 the richest in the world. Thucydides relates that the 
 inhabitants of Segesta took the Athenian envoys thither 
 when they wished to deceive them as to the resources 
 at their disposal, and that they made them believe they 
 were the masters of all the treasures deposited there.^ 
 Among the gifts presented to the goddess, Elienus 
 particularly mentions rings and earrings,^ which reminds 
 us of the Madonna di Trajiani, whose church is just at 
 the foot of Mount Eryx. She is a miraculous Virgin, 
 in whose favour many women of fashion have despoiled 
 themselves of a portion of their ornaments. She is a 
 overladen with diadems, necklaces, bracelets, jewels, 
 which sparkle in the light of the tapers, and even 
 wears, hooked to the bottom of her dress, a number of 
 
 1 Thucydides, VI. 46 - De Anima, X. 50.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 223 
 
 watches of every age aud style, that would fill a collec- 
 tor's heart with joy. According to the report of Elienus, 
 I suppose that something similar must have been found 
 in the Temple of Venus Erycina, so it was thought that 
 the goddess was well pleased with so rich a dwelling- 
 place, and loved to abide there. It was one of her 
 favourite residences. Theocritus says, in invoking her : 
 " thou who dwellest in Golgos, Idalia, or on high 
 Eryx." 1 The people of the country asserted that she 
 only left it once a year, in order to make a tour 
 in Africa. Her absence was known by the sign 
 that not a single dove was seen around Eryx. She 
 took them all with her on her journey. Nine days 
 afterwards she came back, and the doves with her. 
 Her departure and her return were the occasions of 
 brilliant ceremonies. 
 
 The worship of Venus Erycina had the sensual and 
 
 voluptuous character usual in the religions of the East. 
 
 The goddess was served by young and beautiful slaves, 
 
 called in Greek hierodules. In the Temple of Aphrodite, 
 
 at Corinth, there were a thousand of these, who, when 
 
 ships' captains tarried there a few days, made them 
 
 forget the weariness of their long voyages. It must 
 
 have been the same at Eryx. Passing sailors came 
 
 there to celebrate Venus with those transports and 
 
 excesses which heighten the joys of life in people 
 
 always in danger of death. On one of the slopes of 
 
 the mountain a great heap of broken amphorce has 
 
 been found, whose handles bear Greek, Latin, and 
 
 Carthaginian inscriptions. It is likely that the mariners 
 
 1 XV. 100.
 
 224 THE COUNTPY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 of all couutries who climbed Eryx brought their wine 
 with them, and drank it up there in merry company. 
 The heirodules helped them to spend the money they 
 had laboriously amassed in the course of their dangerous 
 voyages. Thus some of these women soon managed 
 to make a fortune. Cicero speaks of one of them, 
 named Agonis, first a slave, and then a freedwoman 
 of Venus, who became very rich, and who possessed, 
 in particular, slave musicians who were a source of 
 envy, and were at last taken away from her.^ These 
 pleasures of all kinds which were found on Eryx make 
 it easy to understand the renown it must have enjoyed 
 among seafaring people all over the Mediterranean. 
 The temple, poised on the top of the mountain, was 
 seen from afar, like a beacon. I suppose that the 
 pilot or the captain who had just made a long voyage 
 full of fatigues and perils felt his heart beat with joy 
 when, coming from Africa or Italy, he saw this place 
 of delights appear on the horizon, where he was about 
 to forget his hardships for a moment, and that when he 
 left Drepanum, he must have kept his eyes long fixed 
 upon the mountain which called up in him such 
 pleasant memories. However, it was not only people 
 of this sort who came to honour Venus Erycina in her 
 sanctuary ; for sometimes visitors of more importance 
 were seen there. Diodorus tells us that the most 
 important magistrates of the Eoman people, consuls, 
 and prretors, when their functions called them this way, 
 mounted to the Temple of Eryx. He adds that their 
 forgetting their gravity for a moment, and rendering 
 
 ^ Divin. in Ccccil., 17.
 
 .ENEAS IN SICILY. 225 
 
 homage to the goddess by lending themselves to the 
 pleasantries and games of the women who served her, 
 was appreciated. They found it an easy manner of 
 performing their devotions.^ 
 
 Now the plateau of Eryx is deserted. The temple 
 of Venus, the residence of the hierodules, all those 
 edifices consecrated to pleasure, have disappeared. 
 These spots, where for so long festive songs resounded, 
 have become silent. Wliat remains to them is the 
 admirable view enjoyed from the top of the mountain, 
 the series of smiling plains and hills following each 
 other to beyond Cape San Vito, that immense extent of 
 sea rolling out before us as far as the coasts of Africa. 
 
 Yet do not let us look so far, but content 
 ourselves with a more restricted horizon. For we 
 must keep our eyes fixed upon this narrow strip of 
 land stretching at our feet between the mountain and 
 the sea. It was chosen by Virgil for the scene of his 
 Fifth Book, and from the heights on which we are 
 standing we are about to follow its different incidents 
 without trouble. 
 
 We have seen, higher up, that what determined 
 >^neas to stop a second time in Italy was the oppor- 
 tunity offered to visit the tomb of Anchises, and render 
 him fresh honours. As soon as he has disembarked, 
 he assembles his soldiers, and from the top of a mound, 
 
 ^The women of Eryx are considered the most beautiful in all Sicil}', 
 and this is all that the country retains of the protection of Venus. 
 They already had this reputation in the Middle Ages. The Arab 
 traveller, Ben Djobair, who makes this statement, adds: "May God 
 make them captives of the Mussulmans ! " 
 
 P
 
 226 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 like an emperor, makes them one of those solemn 
 harangues so pleasing to lioman gravity : 
 
 '■^ Danianidce magni, genius alto a sanguine divum,"^ etc. 
 
 In this speech he announces to them the series of 
 festivals he is preparing in honour of his father's 
 memory, and everything is carried out in acccordance 
 with his word. First they visit the tomb of Anchises, 
 to scatter flowers there, and pour out libations of milk, 
 wine, and blood. The ashes of him who was honoured 
 with the love of Venus, and who is the father of ^neas, 
 are not those of an ordinary being. He is a god, and 
 makes the fact well known to his son by calling up the 
 serpent which issues from his tomb, and comes to taste 
 the meats consecrated to him. iEneas does not at 
 first grasp the meaning of this marvellous apparition, and 
 asks himself whether he has just seen the familiar 
 genius of the place, or whether it is a kind of domestic 
 demon who serves his father in the other life. At last 
 he understands, and sacrifices sheep, swine, and bulls 
 to him, whom he regards as a new divinity. This is a 
 timid and somewhat confused sketch of aj)otheosis. A 
 few years later, when Augustus died and was proclaimed 
 a god by the Senate, the ceremonies of his funeral were 
 minutely regulated, and the ritual of imperial apotheosis 
 was fixed. "Soldiers with their arms, and knights 
 with their insignia, running round the funeral pyre, 
 threw into it the rewards they had received for their 
 valour. Then centurions approached and set fire to it. 
 While it burned, an eagle rose, as if" to carry with 
 
 1^71., V. 45.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILV. 227 
 
 it the soul of the prince. These ceremonies, it must 
 be owned, seem grander than the libations of milk and 
 wine poured by ^neas on the tomb of his father, and 
 the mysterious serpent gliding from the mausoleum ; 
 but Virgil did not foresee what would be done after 
 him, and contented himself, as was his wont, with 
 appropriating the ancient practices of the national 
 religion to new circumstances. The funeral games, 
 announced in advance to the soldiers by ^neas, take 
 place nine days after the sacrifice. Such was the 
 usage, as Servius tells us.^ The trumpet gives the 
 signal ; the Trojans and the people of the country 
 hasten to assemble in order to assist at them, and the 
 poet employs more than five hundred lines, nearly the 
 whole of the Fifth Book, in their description. In order 
 to understand why he gives them so great a place in his 
 work, we must recall that which they held in the 
 lives of the Eomans of his time. Since politics 
 had become indifferent to them, they had grown 
 to be their chief interest, and the amphitheatre or the 
 circus occupied the time left free by the forum. lu 
 order to please them, it had been necessary to multiply 
 their games without measure, and in the first century 
 of the Empire, when those which seemed useless had 
 been suppressed, they still took up one hundred and 
 thirty -five days of the year. So Virgil was certain of 
 charming his readers by entertaining them with that 
 which was their most ardent passion. He also found 
 in them the advantage of being able to imitate Homer, 
 
 ^Servius, in ^ii., V. 64 : Uiide ctiam ludi qui in honorem mortu- 
 orum celcbrantur novemdiales dicuntur.
 
 228 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 who had also taken pleasure in describing at length 
 the games instituted by Achilles at the funeral of 
 Patroclus. This part of Virgil's work is chiefly copied 
 from the Iliad ; but here, as elsewhere, he knows how 
 to maintain an air of independence, even in the midst 
 of the most exact translations. He assimilates what he 
 reproduces, and, in spite of the empire exercised over him 
 by his great predecessor, he preserves the character of 
 his own genius. There are, however, two of these 
 pictures which belong to him entirely. Firstly, he 
 has replaced the chariot race by that of the ships. It 
 is easy to see how the idea of this change was 
 suggested to him. The Trojans, who had been sailing 
 about for seven years, could not have had many horses ^ 
 at their disposal, and, in any case, they had not had 
 opportunities of practising their management. As they 
 have only applied themselves to the handling of their 
 ships, it is in this species of exercise that it was 
 natural to make them contend with each other. The 
 chariot races were common ground, which Greek poetry 
 had hackneyed ; ship races had been described less often, 
 and they might furnish some new descriptions. The 
 other spectacle which Virgil did not borrow from 
 Homer is what is called the " Trojan game " {ludus 
 Trojanus), a kind of carrousel in which the youth took 
 part in games of skill and strength, and to which 
 a very venerable antiquity was attributed. These 
 evolutions of the young folk before the eyes of their 
 fathers had in themselves something oraceful and 
 
 ^Virgil is very careful to say that the horses ridden hy the youths 
 ill the Indus I'rojanus were furnished by Acestes.
 
 yENEAS IN SICILY. 229 
 
 touching which must have pleased Virgil. He knew, 
 moreover, that in describing them he was seconding 
 the designs of Augustus, who brought them into repute 
 again, doubtless in order to make his grandchildren shine 
 in them, and show the people, in the midst of ancient 
 pomps, the future masters of the Empire. The poet 
 is here faithful to his usual system, which consists in 
 connecting the present with the past, and restoring life 
 to these old tales by animating them with the passions 
 of his own time. 
 
 I will not analyse these accounts, which could not 
 have the same interest for us that they possessed for 
 the contemporaries of Virgil. Let it suffice to say 
 that here, as everywhere, the poet has exactly described 
 the scene of his drama. From the height of Eryx, 
 one can fancy one sees the various games by 
 which ^neas honoured the memory of his father, 
 and enjoy the spectacle of them. There is first 
 the ship race, by which the festival begins. The 
 starting-point is not given, but is doubtless some 
 mooring stage near the port of Drepanum, where they 
 had taken refuge during the bad weather. But, on the 
 other hand, the place towards which they are to steer 
 is indicated very clearly. " Amidst the waves, facing 
 the surf-beaten shore, stands forth a rock, by raging 
 billows scourged and hid, when winter storms obscure 
 the sky. Silent in calm it sways the placid flood, and 
 sea-birds love to rest there in the sun." ^ I perceive it 
 a few kilometres from the beach, and Virgil's descrip- 
 tion has helped me to recognise it. It is now called 
 
 1 u^n., V. 124.
 
 230 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 the Isola d'Asinello. The vessels must round this 
 little island, decorated for the occasion with oak 
 branches. This is certainly the rock where Sergestus 
 broke his oars and his prow. I think I see him trying 
 painfully to advance with his remaining sails, " like a 
 snake o'er which a waggon wheel has passed in the middle 
 of the road, which exhausts itself in useless efforts, and 
 bends upon itself, without being able to progress a 
 single step," while the vessel of Mnestheus, with its 
 panting rowers bent to the oar, passes before it like 
 lightning. This first contest over, ^neas, who has 
 witnessed its varying fortunes from the neighbourhood 
 of the port of Drepanum, proceeds, skirting the shore, 
 " to a meadow surrounded by a belt of hills shaded 
 by forests." It would be easy to find, along the slopes 
 of Eryx, more than one spot answering to Virgil's 
 description. Eryx does not descend towards the sea 
 with a uniform slope ; but undulates to right and left in 
 advancing ridges that enclose little verdant valleys 
 nestled to the mountain side. To use the poet's 
 expression, these little valleys closely resemble the 
 circular part of an ancient theatre, and appear made 
 expressly for crowds desirous to assist conveniently at 
 some spectacle. Let us picture to ourselves ^Eneas 
 sitting at the end of this species of circus, upon a more 
 elevated seat. Round about him, the Trojans and 
 Sicilians place themselves as they can upon the slopes 
 of the hills, and thence all watch the foot race, the 
 palestra, and the archery.^ But while all are engrossed 
 
 ^ The spot where these different games take place is the same where 
 Anchiscs was buried. Virgil says so, i)Ositively, in lines 550 and 602. 
 Probably there was some old monument there, which the people of 
 the country called the Tomli of Anchiscs.
 
 ^.NEAS IN SICILY. 281 
 
 in the pleasure they derive from the complicated evolu- 
 tions of the Trojan game, the spectacle is cut short by 
 an unforeseen incident. A messenger hastens up to 
 announce that the women, who had been left at Dre- 
 panum, desperate at the prospect of having to start again, 
 and yielding to the bad advice of Juno, have set fire to 
 the ships. From the spot where he is, the port is hidden 
 from /Eneas, and it is not possible to see the burning 
 fleet ; but above the heights the smoke is seen rising 
 into the air like a cloud. lulus first, and then all the 
 Trojans after him, rush to quench the conflagration. 
 
 Despite the promptness of the aid and the help of 
 Jupiter, all the ships cannot be saved. Some are quite 
 destroyed, or too much damaged to be repaired, 
 so it is no longer possible for iEneas to take away the 
 whole of his people with him, and he must make a 
 selection. The bravest, the most resolute, will alone 
 accompany him ; as for those " who feel not the want 
 of glory," 1 they will stay in Sicily. He leaves the 
 women there, too, who are worn out by seven years of 
 exhausting adventures. But, before departing, he sets to 
 work to build them a town, whose boundary he traces 
 in the Italian manner, with a plough, and which he 
 places under the authority of good Acestus. This town 
 is Segesta, important in its time, and which, in order 
 to conquer its rival Selinus, called the Athenians 
 and the Carthaginians to its aid. It had already much 
 declined when the Eomans became masters of Sicily. 
 It then remembered at the right time that it was said 
 to have been founded by ^neas, and tried to make 
 
 ^ JEii., V. 751 ; Animos nil magncc laudis egentes.
 
 232 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 capital out of its Trojan origin. In support of the 
 tradition, it showed an ancient chapel which it had 
 raised to its founder, and recalled that two little brooks 
 which flow at the end of the valley had received the 
 names of Simois and Scamander. The Eomans received 
 its advances favourably, and looked on it as an allied and 
 kindred town. They affected to treat it lionourably, 
 and exempted it from taxation, while Virgil celebrated 
 its birth in his poem. But these honours did not sta}'- 
 its decadence ; under the Empire it became more and 
 more impoverished and forlorn, and in the Middle Ages 
 it had entirely disappeared. 
 
 Yet people still go to view the site it occupied ; for 
 if the town exists no more, two monuments of it 
 remain — a temple and a theatre — which preserve its 
 memory and attract the curious. The temple is not, 
 perhaps, the most beautiful of those still possessed by 
 Sicily, but there are none which more deeply impress 
 travellers. In order to enjoy and appreciate it at its 
 full merits, it is well to view it from a little distance, it 
 being a characteristic of Greek monuments that they 
 are made for the place they occupy, and that their 
 position is one of the elements of their beauty. Here 
 the temple rises upon a height, and the very hill on 
 which it is built serves it as a pedestal. It is one 
 with it, it is its crown, and to isolate were to dis- 
 member and mutilate it. Its aspect changes entirely 
 according to the point of view. Coming from 
 Calatafimi, it is caught sight of suddenly at a turn of 
 the road, through a break in the rocks, and the view is 
 marvellous. It appears in profile, and its columns 
 stand out against the sky with wonderful clearness.
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 233 
 
 From the foot of Monte Barbaro, we have a front view. 
 Its pediment is outlined against a fine mountain, rising 
 behind and serving it as a background. It thus 
 appears more substantial, more powerful, more severe. 
 This is the quality which prevails as one approaches. 
 When we are quite close, the whole may even appear 
 heavy and ungraceful. The columns, as in all Sicilian 
 temples, are very near each other, less slender and more 
 massive than in the buildings of Greece proper. But 
 let us reflect that here the architects had a difficult 
 problem to solve. They built with inferior materials 
 upon an agitated and moving soil, and they had to 
 sacrifice lightness to solidity. They succeeded, since 
 their monuments still exist. It is, moreover, a defect 
 to which one soon becomes accustomed. The first 
 surprise over, we admire without reserve this noble 
 Doric architecture — so sober, so vigorous, so clear, so 
 rational ; where there is no ornament without its 
 explanation, not a detail but conduces to the effect of 
 the whole, and which is a satisfaction to the mind as 
 well as a feast for the eye.^ The Temple of Segesta was 
 not finished. The fluting of the columns is scarcely 
 begun, and the friezes were never ornamented with 
 sculpture. Very likely the building was in progress 
 when Agathocles took Segesta by assault. It is known 
 that he ruthlessly massacred ten thousand of its inhabi- 
 
 ^ In connection with these qualities of the Gothic order, the first 
 pages of Burckhardt's Cicerone may be read. This excellent book, 
 found so useful to serious travellers desirous of forming a true judg- 
 ment of the masterpieces of art, is now entirely at our disposal, having 
 been translated into very elegant French by M. Auguste Gerard 
 (Paris, Firmin Didot).
 
 234 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 tants and sold the rest. Since that terrible event, 
 the city did nothing more than vegetate, and never 
 found resources to complete the temple begun by her 
 on so large a scale in the time of her prosperity. It 
 had to be adapted to worship as best it might, and was 
 used in this condition for centuries. This is what has 
 since happened to many Gothic cathedrals overtaken by 
 the Renaissance or the Eeforni before their completion. 
 As for the town itself, it was situated on a neigh- 
 bouring hill, Monte Barbaro. We climb up to it with 
 difficulty, amid fallen rocks; and in the ascent we come 
 across a few fragments of wall, a few thresholds of the 
 Eoman epoch, and this is all we have left of Segesta. 
 One of the things that most astonish us, while roving 
 the world in search of relics of the past, is to see 
 important towns, like this which resisted Syracuse, 
 perish so completely that scarcely a trace of them is 
 left. Only the theatre, cut into the rock, has survived 
 the common ruin. The orchestra and the stage may be 
 distinguished, while the rows of benches, with the steps 
 by which the spectators reached their places, are nearly 
 intact. If we except that of Taormina, which is a 
 marvel, I do not believe there is another in Sicily 
 whence a more extensive or more varied view is 
 enjoyed. It is bosomed '.in the midst of a circle of 
 picturesque mountains, whose tops sometimes form great 
 majestic lines, and at others fantastic, intricate zigzags. 
 Before it, the plain extends as far as the sea, seen on the 
 horizon in a frame of hills, with the little town of 
 Castellamare, which without doubt formerly served as 
 a port to Segesta. Looking down below us, we are 
 struck by the variety of different aspects the country
 
 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 235 
 
 presents at its various heights. At a glance we may 
 pass in review all the different cultivations forming its 
 wealth. Below, near the streams, are orange and lemon 
 trees, whose yellow fruit stands out upon the dark -green 
 leaves. A little higher, half-way up, we have corn, the 
 vine, the olive — all those products which made Sicily, 
 as Cato said, the granary of Italy. Higher yet, along 
 the abrupt slopes, are seen dwarf palms, aloes, a vigor- 
 ous vegetation reaching nearly to the top of the hills, 
 and cropped by sheep and goats. But in spite of the 
 admiration this sight produces, it is impossible not to 
 feel intense surprise. As far as sight can penetrate, 
 neither village, farm, nor cottage is to be seen ; and w4th 
 the exception of a few wild-looking herdsmen, not a 
 human form. The workmen only come here when they 
 have to sow or reap. Their labour done, they return 
 home, and this fertile country, for a while so full of life, 
 once more becomes a desert. The solitude is then so 
 profound, that one finds it very difficult to picture to 
 oneself that these spots, where no human sound reaches 
 the ear, were once so well peopled and so animated ; and 
 did one not see at one's feet the seats of a theatre, and 
 on a neighbouring hill the temple with its empty cella 
 and sunken roof, one would never imagine one was 
 standing on the site of a great town. 
 
 After ^neas has founded Segesta, and settled the 
 Trojans there whom he is not to take with him, nothing- 
 more remains for him to do in Sicily. So he takes leave 
 of Acestus, sacrifices sheep and bulls to the gods, and 
 orders the cables which hold the ships to the shore to be 
 cut. " Himself erect upon the prow, his head encircled 
 with an olive wreatli, and raising the cup he holds in
 
 236 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 his hand, he flings into the salt sea the entrails of the 
 victims, and pours libations of wine upon the waves." i 
 The wind blows from the poop, and bears him to Italy, 
 where he must fulfil his destiny. 
 
 III. 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 
 I. 
 
 THE TWO PARTS OF THE ^iN'lE'/Z'— CHARACTER OF THE LAST 
 SIX BOOKS — VIRGIL IS HERE IN THE HEART 01 HIS 
 SUBJECT — PERFECTION OF THE STYLE — THE POET'S 
 AIM COMES OUT BETTER — VIRGIL'S PATRIOTISM — HOW 
 HE HAS GROUPED ALL ITALY AROUND HIS WORK. 
 
 The u^neid, as we know, is very exactly divided into 
 two equal parts, of six Books each. The first portion 
 contains the adventures of ^neas up to the moment 
 when he disembarks at the mouth of the Tiber. The 
 other relates how he manages to establish himself in the 
 country assigned him by the Fates. These two parts 
 have not quite the same character. It was long since 
 remarked that the one more resembles the Odyssey, the 
 other the Iliad. The first is most generally preferred 
 by amateurs and critics, who find it more interesting, 
 more agreeable, and more varied. They find the second 
 
 ^n., V. 774.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 237 
 
 greatly inferior, some even suspecting that Virgil felt 
 this inferiority, and that this is why, when dying, he 
 wished to destroy his work. " It is not vouchsafed to 
 men to be perfect," says Voltaire, alluding to this. 
 " Virgil exhausts all that the imagination has of greatest 
 in the descent of ^neas to hell ; in the loves of Dido 
 he has said all that can be said to the heart ; terror and 
 compassion cannot go further than in the description of 
 the ruin of Troy. From this high elevation which he 
 had reached in the midst of his flight, he could only 
 descend." Chateaubriand was, I think, the first among 
 us to protest against the opinion of Voltaire. In that 
 part of the Genius of Christianity/, where he treats of 
 literary criticism, and where, in spite of his defective 
 knowledge, he has cast so many new ideas, he makes the 
 curious remark that the most touching lines of Virgil, 
 those whose memory has lingered in all hearts, are found 
 in just the last six Books of the ^ncid. He infers from 
 this that in drawing near to the tomb the poet put 
 something more celestial into his accents, "like the 
 swans of Eurotas, consecrated to the Muses, who, accord- 
 ing to Pythagoras, before expiring had a vision of 
 Olympus, and expressed their ravishment by harmonious 
 songs." 
 
 What is true above all, and impossible to contest, is 
 that in these six Books we are really in the heart of the 
 subject. Virgil has taken care to tell us this himself. 
 At the moment when his hero disembarks upon the 
 coast of Italy, he interrupts himself, in order to invoke 
 the Muse, and ask her aid, for he needs it more than 
 ever on account of the importance of the events he is 
 about to sino; ;
 
 238 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 "Major rerem mili nascitur ordOy 
 Majlis ojms vioveo " ' 
 
 We see that, far from believing, as Voltaire would 
 have it, that at this moment " his subject declines," 
 he proclaims that he has reached the culminating point 
 of his work. There are even some critics who, taking 
 advantage of his avowal, reproach him with having 
 got there too late. They find that it is much to spend 
 six Books out of twelve in the narration of preliminary 
 adventures, and that it is surprising that in a poem 
 whose fine ordering everybody extols, half of the 
 work should be beside the real action. But it 
 seems to me that people who so reason do not 
 take Virgil's aim into account. He wants to relate 
 how ^neas brought his gods into Latium and built 
 them an asylum there, so that the action begins at 
 the moment when Hector confides them to him. 
 All the dangers he dares by land or sea are equally 
 part of the subject ; and if Virgil seems to have chosen 
 to multiply them at pleasure,'^ it is because they fore- 
 shadow the great destinies of the city that is about to 
 come into being. The hostile gods would not rage 
 against her with such cruel obstinacy did they not 
 know that she is to be queen of the world. This is 
 why, after having recalled all the obstacles that oppose 
 its birth, and which appear to liim the gauge of its 
 glorious future, the poet concludes his enumeration 
 with this triumphant line : 
 
 1 .En., VII. 44. 
 
 - Heyne (yE7i. III., excursus II.) lias shown that while the ordinary 
 traditions suppose the voyage to have lasted three years, Virgil makes 
 it last seven.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 239 
 
 " Tantce molis end Romanam condere gcntem." ^ 
 
 Thus the trials of all kinds infiicted by the auger 
 of Juno on pious ^neas are included in the subject of 
 the u^ncid, and Virgil was within his right in relating 
 them to us ; but as the adverse duties must redouble 
 their efforts in proportion as the hero nears the goal, 
 it is natural that his last struggle should also be the 
 most perilous. Before gaining a decisive victory, he 
 must brave his most inveterate enemies and fight the 
 most hazardous battles. Virgil was therefore right in 
 saying, at the moment when he was about to begin the 
 narration of these last combats, " that a vaster career 
 was opening before him, and that he had arrived at 
 the most important part of his work." 
 
 It was also the most difficult part. In the remainder 
 he is supported and sustained by Homer and the other 
 poets, epic or lyric, who sang the adventures of the 
 Greek heroes returning home after the fall of Troy. 
 Thanks to these poets, all the isles of the Archipelago, 
 all the shores of the Ionian Sea, were peopled with 
 charming fancies which they had sown in the path 
 of their heroes. Virgil had only to choose ; to what- 
 ever spot he led J^neas, he was sure to awaken poetic 
 memories in every mind. Homer, Sophocles, Pindarus, 
 and the others thus became his fellow-workers, and he 
 gave his poem the advantage of the admiration inspired 
 by their works. But once alighted in Italy, all these 
 resources fail him. On this ungrateful soil, which 
 Poesy has not touched with her wing ; which, instead 
 of the treasure of Greek fables, ouly offers him a few 
 
 1 j^n., T. 33.
 
 240 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 meagre and prosaic legends, he must draw upon him- 
 self for almost everything. I will not pity him too 
 much on this account ; since if from this moment his 
 work becomes less easy and pleasant, it gains in 
 originality, and belongs to him more. It is this indeed 
 which gives us his true measure. Whatever admiration 
 one feels for the marvels he has crowded into his 
 first six Books, there is in the others more invention 
 and veritable genius, and it is by them he should be 
 judged. 
 
 In the first place, their style is perfect. The efforts 
 the poet must have made to impart beauty to matter in 
 itself sufficiently arid, and to put something of variety 
 into a rather monotonous theme, are not perceived. 
 The incidents are so skilfully introduced, and seem to 
 arise so naturally from the subject, that it is difficult 
 to realise how much imagination and artifice were 
 needed to weld them together. This merit does 
 not strike one in reading a good poem. Order and 
 connection are such natural qualities that one does 
 not think of remarking them. In order to appreciate 
 their value, we must read those devoid of them. 
 From this point of view, it may be said that the 
 perusal of the epic poets of the decadence, who 
 took so much trouble to be interesting, and 
 succeeded so poorly, redounds much to Virgil's 
 credit. Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, and, above 
 all. Statins, that man of so much refinement 
 and talent, whose poem is only a mass of brilliant 
 episodes, laboriously brought together without being 
 united, makes us duly appreciate in the ^Jneid the 
 simplicity of the action, the dexterous joining of the
 
 OSTIA AND LAYINIUM. 241 
 
 parts, and the harmony of the whole. But we shall be 
 more sensible of these merits if we compare different 
 parts of Virgil's work. In the first Books of his poem, 
 the narrative sometimes wanders ; and there is even 
 one, the Fifth, which, strictly speaking, might be 
 omitted. Nothing of the kind is found in the second 
 part of the work. There everything is connected and 
 linked, and the author walks straight on without ever 
 straying from his road. The action, urgent and swift, 
 lingers not for a moment. It is so simple that it 
 may be taken in at a glance, and nothing is easier than 
 to sum it up in a few words. Throughout three Books 
 Fate is adverse to the Trojans. Juno succeeds in 
 frustrating the alliance they were about to make with 
 Latinus ; all the Italian peoples take arms against 
 them ; and while ^neas is gone to obtain the support 
 of Evander and the Etruscans, Turnus besieges his 
 camp and almost succeeds in taking it. In the Tenth 
 Book ^neas returns with fresh troops, and on his 
 arrival fortune changes. He begins by beating back 
 thfe Latins, who attack his soldiers ; then he in his 
 turn pursues them as far as Laurentum, and ends the 
 war with the death of Turnus. This arrangement 
 is nearly the same as that of the Iliad, where 
 we see Hector advance nearer and nearer towards 
 the vessels of the Greeks, and then retire before 
 Achilles as far as the walls of Troy, where he is 
 slain. But in Homer events are so crowded that 
 the wealth of detail does not always allow of a just 
 conception of the whole. In "Virgil, who is more 
 sober and terse, the general plan is better seen, the 
 double movement constituting the progress of tlie 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 action is better understood, and the unity of the 
 work being more apparent, the interest seems to be 
 more lively. 
 
 I also find that in these last Books one is more 
 struck by the poet's aim, and that the idea which 
 animates the work is more visible here than elsewhere. 
 This thought, it may be said, is found everywhere ; for 
 there is not a verse of the JEneid in which Eome is 
 not glorified, and just at the end of the Sixth Book 
 there is an admirable summary of its history. Virgil's 
 patriotism is so ardent that he everywhere seeks and 
 finds occasion to display it. One feels some surprise 
 at this, when one reflects that this poet who sings of 
 Kome with such passion was not quite Roman by birth. 
 For a long time the aristocratic party had obstinately 
 refused to grant the right of complete citizenship to the 
 inhabitants of Cisalpina. These vain great lords took 
 pleasure in making them feel, by every kind of outrage, 
 that they were still subjects and a conquered people. 
 Virgil, in his youth, must have heard the story of the 
 decurion of Como, whom Marcellus one day caused to 
 be beaten with rods, in order to prove to him that he 
 was not a citizen. It was not until 712, after the battle 
 of Philippi, that the inhabitants of Cisalpina, who had 
 received from Ciesar the right of citizenship, were placed 
 upon quite the same rank as other Italians. Virgil 
 was then twenty-eight years old, and a Roman at heart. 
 Rome must truly have exerted an extraordinary attrac- 
 tion over people, for her former enemies so soon to 
 have become her faithful allies and devoted citizens. 
 She is usually represented as an object of execration 
 to the vanquished ; this is a great mistake, at least
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 243 
 
 SO far as the West is concerned. She knew how, in 
 a few years, to make her conquest forgotten. It is 
 remarkable that those who loved her most, who 
 served her with the greatest zeal, and celebrated her 
 with most affection, did not belong to her by birth, and 
 were descended from peoples she had roughly subdued. 
 Virgil, then, was a patriot, almost before he was a 
 citizen, only his patriotism is not quite like that of 
 the old Eomans of the Eepublic. The latter only saw 
 Eome, and the great town was all in all to them. ' 
 Virgil also admires it much ; but he does not separate 
 it from Italy, The country, for him, is not entirely 
 included within the wall of Servius ; it includes the 
 lands contained by the Alps and the sea. And he 
 is tenderly attached to this great country, which had 
 been so unhappy during the civil wars, and which 
 he saw so rich and flourishing under Augustus.^ 
 He had already sung it in admirable lines in his 
 Georgics : — 
 
 '■^ Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellies, 
 Magna virum ! " ^ 
 
 "When, later on, in response to the wish of the 
 Emperor and the desire of all the Eomans, he resolved 
 to write his epic, he quite intended to associate all 
 
 ' The scholiast Servius tells us: "It is well seen that Virgil was 
 very much interested in all that concerned Italy" {^n., I. 44). 
 Although his history is not well known, it may be affirmed that he 
 had often visited it, admiring its beautiful spots and its fine views, 
 and inquiring into the ancient history of all the towns he passed 
 through. 
 
 " Georg., II. 173.
 
 244 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Italy in the glory with which he meant to crown Eome. 
 He started with this thought, but could only quite 
 realise it in his last six Books. The action, which 
 hitherto had travelled all over the world, then centres 
 in the plains of La.tium. The theatre in which this 
 great drama is jjlayed is really very limited, and does not 
 extend beyond four or five square leagues ; but in this 
 little plain reaching from Ostia to Laurentum, and 
 from the hills to the sea, Virgil has had the skill to 
 group all Italy. There are in the army of Turnus, 
 Latins, Sabines, Volsci, Marsci, Umbrians, and even 
 Campanians — that is to say, representatives of all those 
 noble races of Central Italy that furnished so many 
 soldiers to the Eoman armies, ^neas joins to his 
 Trojans the Greeks of Evander, and the Etruscans of 
 Tarchon ; and as at this time Etruria extended her 
 dominion as far as the Alps, the poet takes occasion to 
 ])ut Ligurians and Cisalpians among the troops of 
 ^Eneas, and to say something by the way of his be- 
 loved Mantua. Only the point of Southern Italy, then 
 in the hands of the Greeks, remained outside his 
 subject ; but he finds means of some sort to connect it. 
 He imagines that Turnus sends an embassy to Diomedes, 
 who reigns over those parts, in order to ask his alliance. 
 Thus, although Diomedes refuses to take up arms, bis 
 name and those of the towns he governs are not quite 
 absent from the jEiieid. And so the poet caused all 
 the races of Italy to figure in it, creating for them 
 common memories in the past, at the moment when 
 they had just been united under the hegemony of 
 Home, and interesting them all in the success of his 
 work.
 
 MARITIME LATIUM 
 
 \ ' 
 
 ENVIRONS OF OSTIA. 
 
 A L 
 
 vSiig
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 245 
 
 These general reflections ended, let us enter at length 
 upon the study of the chief events narrated in Virgil's 
 last six Books, and follow them, as far as possible, over 
 the country which was their theatre. 
 
 II. 
 
 ^NEAS LANDS ON THE COAST OF OSTIA — VIRGIL'S 
 DESCRIPTION OF IT — ITS ASPECT IN OUR DAYS — HOW 
 ^.NEAS KNOWS THAT HE HAS REACHED THE END OF 
 HIS VOYAGE — MIRACLE OF THE EATEN TABLES — THE 
 \VHITE SOW AND HER THIRTY LITTLE ONES — ORIGINAL 
 MEANING OF THIS LEGEND, AND THE CHANGES IT 
 UNDERWENT. 
 
 In the course of his long voyage ^neas has more 
 than once approached Italy. On quitting Epirus, 
 where Helenus and Andromache had just given him 
 such a good reception, he perceived in the distance 
 before' him low lands and misty hills. It is Italy. 
 " Italy ! " exclaims first Achates. " Italy ! " join in all 
 his companions, saluting it with a joyous cry. The 
 heart of ^neas beats with pleasure on first nearing the 
 country promised him by the Fates, and which his 
 race is to make so glorious. But he is not to enter on 
 this side. The soil before his eyes is all Greek, and 
 peopled with enemies. He contents himself with 
 secretly passing a night there, and continues his way 
 along the Gulf of Tarentum. Later on, after liis sojourn 
 in Carthage and in Sicily, where Acestus, another 
 fugitive from Troy, affords him hospitality, he stops at 
 Cum?e to consult the sibyl and descend into Hell. But
 
 246 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 this is not yet the spot where he is to settle ; he must 
 re-embark and turn towards those Latian lands " which 
 seem ever to flee before him." Finally, after touching 
 at Misenum, at Palinurus, and at Caieta, to bury there 
 the companions he has lost, he doubles the promontory 
 where the enchantress Circe holds her court, and 
 arrives at the mouth of the Tiber. 
 
 " The sea was already becoming tinged with the rays 
 of dawn, and Aurora clomb to the horizon on her rosy 
 car. Suddenly the winds fall, the breeze ceases to 
 blow, and we must wrestle with the oar against the 
 passive wave. Then J^neas sees upon the shore a 
 tufted wood, and in the midst the Tiber winds his 
 smiling course, bearing his yellow sands, and flinging 
 himself with rapid whirlings into the sea. Along and 
 above his waters birds of varied hues, the wonted 
 dwellers of the wood and stream, enchant the air with 
 their accents, and flutter amid the trees. ^Eneas orders 
 his sailors to direct their course on that side, and turn the 
 prows towards the shore, and then he enters joyously 
 the shady bed of Tiber," ^ 
 
 I have more than once gone over this coast where, 
 one spring morning, the pious iEneas landed ; and I 
 own that the spectacle I had before my eyes is not 
 quite what Virgil drew. The Tiber continues to flow 
 noiselessly, fretting its banks, and rolling its yellow 
 waters towards the sea ; but trees are rare on this 
 desolate shore, and I never heard birds sing there. In 
 lieu of this idyllic picture, one has before one a 
 monotonous and silent landscape that awakens in the 
 
 » yEn., VII. 24.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 247 
 
 soul an impression of sadness and of grandeur. It was 
 otherwise in Virgil's time ; and if he adorned his picture 
 with such cheerful colours, it is because he drew these 
 spots as he saw them. Near the Tiber's mouth rose Ostia, 
 the old port of Eome, growing each day in importance, 
 as the relations of Italy with foreign countries became 
 more frequent. The moment was approaching when 
 the great city, unable any longer to feed herself, would 
 be forced to ask neighbouring lands for her food — oil 
 from Spain, corn from Africa and Egypt. All the 
 merchandise of the world was beginning to pass 
 through Ostia, which grew more and more populous 
 every day. It is at this time that Virgil visited it, 
 and he saw the Tiber as those enriched merchants, who 
 came thither to enjoy a little freshness and repose upon 
 its banks after the fatigues of the day, had made it. 
 All this part of the country had then a very different 
 aspect from that which ten centuries of desertion and 
 solitude have given it. The sacred isle between Porto 
 and Ostia has become a desert where a few wild oxen 
 graze, and which the traveller hardly dares to cross, 
 was then a much-frequented place, whither the Prsefeci/ 
 of Eome came with a part of the Roman people to cele- 
 brate brilliant festivals. We are told that throughout the 
 year the ground formed a veritable carpet of verdure, 
 and that in spring so many roses and flowers of all 
 kinds grew there that the air was perfumed, and it was 
 called " the abode of Venus." ^ The banks of the Tiber, 
 
 ^ See what Wernsdorif says in the Preface of Pervigilium Veneris 
 about these festivals which used to be celebrated at Ostia {Poetce Lat. 
 minores, Lemaire's edition, II. p. 485).
 
 248 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 as far as Rome, were covered uninterruptedly with fine 
 villas. " He alone," says Pliny, " has more than all 
 other rivers together." ^ Near the immense city it was 
 bordered by delicious gardens, where the great lords 
 loved to assemble their friends of both sexes for joyous 
 feasts, during which they amused themselves by 
 watching the boats pass up and down the stream.^ 
 One cannot doubt but that Virgil assisted more than 
 once at these amusements of the Eoman aristocracy, 
 and he must have had them in mind when describing 
 in the Eighth Book the journey undertaken by ^neas 
 to the town of Evander. It would be impossible to 
 imagine a more pleasant voyage : " The vessels glide 
 upon the waters, the river is astonished, the forest looks 
 with surprise at this new spectacle of gleaming bucklers 
 and brightly-coloured ships that swim upon the waves. 
 The rowers work without ceasing, and advance through 
 the long windings of the Tiber ; they pass beneath a 
 thick vault of trees ; and their prow seems to cleave 
 the forest whose image is reflected on the placid 
 water." ^ Except the sinuosities of the sluggish river, 
 nothing is now left us resembling this seductive 
 picture. An old writer, a century earlier than Virgil, 
 and who doubtless lived at a time when the work of 
 man had not yet transformed this thankless nature, 
 speaks very differently from him. He describes -ZEneas 
 as seized with sadness at the sight of this country 
 which Latinus makes over to him, and where he must 
 henceforth live. " He was very ill pleased," he tells us, 
 " to have fallen upon so arid and sandy a soil : cegre 
 
 » Hut. XoJ., III. 5 (9). - I'ropertius, I. 14. ^ ^.^'„_^ yju. 91.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 249 
 
 patiebatur in eum devenisse agrum macerrimum litorosis- 
 simumque." ^ This energetic sentence represents 
 admirably the aspect of the country as we see it to-day. 
 When from the height of one of these mounds, formed 
 by the accumulation of ruins, we cast our eyes around 
 us, it is impossible not to pity the poor Trojan chief 
 who has just left the rich fields of Asia, and whom the 
 gods have made pay with so many toils and perils for 
 the possession of a few leagues of sand. 
 
 Virgil attributes other feelings to him. He re- 
 presents him as enchanted at the spectacle before 
 him, and overjoyed at touching this unknown shore. 
 For he hopes that he has at last reached the end of his 
 journey, and that the soil he is about to tread is the 
 land whither the Fates have led him. But when we 
 know pious -^neas, we shall be certain that he will not 
 lightly trust to his hopes. Before beginning to found 
 a stable settlement, he will wait until the gods have 
 shown him by manifest signs that he is not mistaken ; 
 and in order that he may have full confidence, they 
 must prove to him twice, by successive prodigies, that 
 he is in the land where he is to remain. These 
 wonders, related by Virgil circumstantially, have in his 
 work a particular character. They already astonished 
 the critics of antiquity ; they still more surprise 
 modern readers,^ and have given rise to great dis- 
 
 ^ Servius, in ^n., I. 7. These are the words of the historian 
 Fabius Maximus. 
 
 ^ Voltaire is so afraid they may be found ridiculous that he finds 
 it necessary to excuse Virgil for having related them. " Is it not 
 true," he says, "that we should allow a French author who took 
 Clevis for his hero to talk about the holy ampulla brought by a dove 
 from heaven into the city of Rheims to anoint the king, and which
 
 250 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 cussions. Since we are just upon the spot where they 
 took place, let us occupy ourselves with them for a 
 moment. 
 
 We know what a great part religion plays in the 
 jEneid, and that this religion in its essence is the 
 religion of Homer. I cannot here relate how it happens 
 that the gods of Greece and Rome, which originally did 
 not resemble each other, finished by being confounded. 
 The friends of Greek literature doubtless helped much 
 in this confusion ; in any case, it was very advantageous 
 to them. When they composed some poetical work, they 
 allowed themselves to make Jupiter and Minerva talk 
 like Zeus or Athene, and to freely imitate those master- 
 pieces with which their imaginations were charmed. 
 There can be no doubt but that Virgil also accepted it 
 very willingly. He loved Homer too much not to seize 
 with alacrity all opportunities of drawing near to him. 
 It is, however, clear that he endeavoured somehow to 
 preserve for his mythology a national character, and 
 this stamps his originality among his country's poets. 
 In the first place, we see that when he borrows a fable 
 from the Greeks, he takes care to place the scene of it 
 in some corner of Italian ground. Instead of calling 
 up the dead on a field of asphodels, on some unknown 
 isle of the ocean, like Ulysses, iEneas descends into 
 Hell near Lake Avernus, at the spot where the people 
 
 is still preserved with faith in that town ? It is the fate of all those 
 ancient fables to which the origin of every nation goes back, that their 
 antiquity is respected while their absurdity is laughed at. After all, 
 however excusable it may be to use such tales, I think it would be 
 better to reject them entirely. One sensible reader whom these things 
 offend deserves more to be considered than the ignorant vulgar who 
 believe in them."
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 251 
 
 of the country place an entrance to Tartarus. The 
 abode where Vulcan forges the arms of the gods is no 
 longer at Lemnos, but near Sicily, in one of those 
 volcanic isles " whence fires are seen to gush like those 
 of ^tna." 1 When Tisiphone has finished her work of 
 discord and wishes to leave the earth, she plunges into 
 the Lake of Amsactus, which exhales pestiferous 
 vapours.2 Finally, Juno, desiring closely to watch 
 the last combats of Turnus and JEneas, quits Olympus 
 and stations herself on the heights of Mount Albanus, 
 where, later on, the famous and national Temple of 
 Jupiter Latialis rose.^ It was a way of connecting 
 this foreign mythology with Italy, and of interesting 
 all Romans in attaching it more closely to them. But 
 he had still more in view. The introduction of the 
 Hellenic religion had not suppressed all the ancient 
 fables of the Italian races. Some survived in con- 
 nection with towns or temples, whose birth they ex- 
 plained. They were rude, like the people who had 
 created them ; and men of the world, who found that 
 they recalled the rusticity of their forefathers, took 
 pleasure in laughing at them. Virgil treated them 
 with more respect. Their antiquity endeared them to 
 him, and he thought that, having cradled the infancy 
 
 ^ j^n., VIII. 416. 2 ji^id,^ VII. 563. 
 
 3 Ibid., XII. 134. It is curious, in this connection, to note in what 
 degree Horace and Virgil have contrary tendencies. While the patriot 
 Virgil, who would fain impart a Latin colouring to the Greek fables, 
 seems to wish to confound Olympus with Mount Albanus, Horace, very 
 indifferent to such a care, laughs at those who would identify Mount 
 Albanus with Parnassus, and who pretend to make it the abode of the 
 Muses : Diditet Albano Musas in monte locutas {Epist., II. 1. 27).
 
 252 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 of the Eoman people, they had a right to figure in a 
 poem telling of its foundation. It was doubtless not 
 an easy task to place them beside the Homeric fables, 
 usually so elegant and so graceful, and they ran a great 
 risk of making but a sorry figure there ; but this danger 
 did not stay the poet, whose aim it was that ^neas, on 
 setting foot in Latium, should be welcomed and greeted, 
 as it were, by an old Latin legend. 
 
 The Trojans, he tells us, had just fastened their 
 
 ships to the green banks of the Tiber, ^neas, with 
 
 the principal chiefs and handsome lulus, are resting 
 
 beneath the branches of a high tree. They prepare 
 
 their repast. First, among the food they are to eat 
 
 they place cakes of pure wheat (it was Jupiter himself 
 
 who suggested this idea to them), and then they load 
 
 this table, formed of the products of Ceres, with wild 
 
 fruits. It happened that when all their food was 
 
 exhausted, their hunger, still unsated, obliged them 
 
 to attack those light cakes. " Ah ! " exclaimed lulus, 
 
 jesting, " here we are eating our tables as well." He 
 
 said no more ; but this saying was enough to announce 
 
 to the Trojans the end of their ills, ^neas at once 
 
 receives it from the mouth of his son, and struck by the 
 
 accomplishment of the oracle, he meditates upon it in 
 
 silence. Then, suddenly, " Hail ! " lie cried, " land which 
 
 the Fates did promise me ! And you also hail, faithful 
 
 Penates of Troy. Here is your dwelling, here is your 
 
 country. My father Anchises (I remember him to-day) 
 
 revealed to me in times gone by the secrets of the 
 
 future. ' My son,' he said, ' when arrived on unknown 
 
 shores hunger shall force thee, after eating all, to 
 
 devour also thy tables, hope then for a fixed abode.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 253 
 
 and remember to trace on tliat spot the boundary of a 
 new town.' Here, then, is that terrible hunger that was 
 foretold to us. Yes, we have just borne the last trial 
 which was to put an end to our uncertain wanderings."^ 
 Heyne, who passed his life in commenting on Virgil, 
 and usually professed a great admiration for him, can- 
 not help being scandalised here. This legend of the 
 eaten tables seems to him quite ridiculous, and unworthy 
 of the majesty of an epic poem. It must be owned that 
 it bears the character of a peasant's fable. Tliey are 
 very fond of telling these tales, which at first seem 
 terrible, but end almost amusingly. The one in question 
 was doubtless ancient, and had been repeated for a 
 great length of time in the cabins of Latian husband- 
 men.2 Virgil sought it there, and, far from blaming 
 him for it, like Heyne, I think he must be congratu- 
 lated on having had the courage to introduce it into his 
 poem, and the more so that he was not unaware that it 
 would shock many of his readers. He also knew those 
 railers and sceptics whom Ovid addressed when, being 
 about to talk of old Janus and his ridiculous surnames, 
 he says to them, " You are going to laugh." He has 
 
 1 ^n., YII. 107. 
 
 2 Probably certain rites in the worship of the Penates had given 
 rise to it. It was customary to offer those little gods the first fruits of 
 the repast, and these were presented to them on slices of bread 
 called mensce panicea^. Naturally they were sacred, and only in case 
 of a terrible famine would anyone dare to touch them. To eat 
 the panicecB would therefore simply mean to suffer from one of those 
 scarcities which force one to respect nothing. Such must be the origin 
 of the prediction made to the Trojans, and which frightened them so 
 much. The good-humoured ingenuity of the Latian peasantry found 
 the means related by Virgil to fulfil the oracle at small cost.
 
 254 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 even made visible attempts to disarm them, and lias 
 obviously tried to prepare these malicious wits for this 
 rustic story, and familiarise them with it. In order 
 that they may be less surprised on hearing it told, he 
 has it announced several times in advance. With this 
 task he charges the Harpies, old Greek divinities — 
 coarse, a little grotesque, and quite suited for the office. 
 As for the narrative itself, I have just qupted it in full, 
 and the skill with which it is managed is obvious. 
 There are none of those little jokes, as in Ovid, designed 
 to show that the poet is not taken in by the tale he 
 is telling ; all is simple and serious. Yet we must 
 remark the part given to lulus in this matter. It is he 
 who perceives that they have eaten their tables, and who 
 says it. In another mouth the thing might surprise ; 
 it is becoming in a child, to whom such little remarks 
 are natural. Without apparent design, therefore, Virgil 
 has set about making us accept this simple legend with 
 great cleverness.^ 
 
 The other was more important, and enjoyed a much 
 greater popularity in the country. The first adventure, 
 just related, assured -iEneas that he had at length set 
 foot upon the ground that had been promised to him, 
 and ordered him to make a first settlement at the very 
 spot where he had disembarked. But this was not the 
 
 1 We have just seen in Virgil's narrative that iEneas only speaks of 
 Anchises. It is he alone who predicted that he would be reduced to 
 eat his tables. It is therefore likely that the prediction of the Harpies 
 was added by the poet later on. I do not think it rash to suppose, 
 as I have just said, that Virgil only did so because he feared the bad 
 effect his narrative might produce on some readers, and wished tO' 
 justify it, and prepare them for it in advance.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM, 255 
 
 end of his fortune. The Trojans will not remain in 
 this kind of intrenched camp which they are about to 
 construct at the mouth of the Tiber. They must leave 
 it, in order to advance to greater conquests, plunging 
 deeper and deeper into the interior of the country, and 
 building a new town each time they stop. This march, 
 with Eome for its goal, must be known to ^neas. He 
 deserves to be admitted to the secrets of the future, 
 since he has had so much trouble in preparing it. 
 Were he only working for himself, he would long since 
 have been fixed on some quiet spot of earth, there to 
 end his troubled existence in peace. But he belongs 
 to his descendants, and must not deprive them of the 
 country over which they are called to reign, or of the 
 glory that awaits them. Is it not just that, to console 
 him for the toils and perils he suffers, he may at least 
 know what is to happen after him, and foresee the great 
 destinies in the preparation of which he is working so 
 hard ? This is how the gods reveal the future to him. 
 
 When ^neas can no longer doubt the hostility of 
 the Latins, he is anxious about the war that threatens 
 him, and a prey to a thousand cares. As evening falls 
 he stretches himself upon the river bank, " beneath the 
 fresh vault of the skies," ^ and only goes to sleep after 
 the others, late in the night. During his slumbers, a 
 god appears to him, " clad in a light purple tunic with 
 azure folds, his head covered with a crown of reeds." 
 He introduces himself. It is the river-god himself, by 
 whose brink the hero is resting, the Tiber, beloved of 
 heaven, who flows with full banks through fertile plains. 
 
 1 ^n., VIII. 26.
 
 256 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 "Ego sum, j^leno quern Jluviine cernis 
 Stringentem rijios et xnnguia culta secantem, 
 CcRTuhus Tibris, coelo gratissimus amnis." 
 
 He begins by repeating to iEneas, who cannot know 
 it too well, that this land is indeed the one where he 
 must settle : " Thy promised home is here ; and here 
 must thy Penates dwell." And that he may not think 
 himself the dupe of a dream, a manifest sign of the 
 divine will is announced to him : " Under the oaks 
 that cover this shore, thou shalt find an enormous sow 
 outstretched, which has just brought forth thirty little 
 ones. She is white, and her little ones, white like their 
 mother, hang from her teats. This is the spot where 
 thou must raise the city thou art to build (Lavinium) ; 
 it is the end of all thy toils. Thence, later on, after 
 thirty years have come round, shalt start thy son, 
 Ascanius, to go and found Alba, the noble city, whose 
 name shall recall its origin {Alba, the white). 'Be sure 
 that my predictions do not deceive thee." And indeed, 
 on awakening, iEneas finds the white sow lying on the 
 bank with her thirty little ones, and sacrifices them to 
 Juno. 
 
 This legend, like the preceding, is a peasant's tale. 
 The word-play forming its essence, and which explains 
 the name of the town of Alba, sufficiently shows its 
 origin. Those peasants, moreover, are inhabitants of 
 Latium, a country whose swine form its chief wealth. 
 Varro the Elder speaks with vanity of those which he 
 raises in his domains, and calls his countrymen " pig- 
 raisers " by way of compliment {porculatores italici). 
 Strictly speaking, it may be said that these animals 
 figure more advantageously on a farm than in an epic
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 257 
 
 poem. Homer doubtless spoke of them without 
 repugnance ; yet when, in the Iliad, Jupiter wishes to 
 restore courage to the combatants by a favourable omen, 
 he usually sends them an eagle rending a serpent, or hold- 
 ing a fawn in his talons. An eagle, it must be owned, 
 looks better than a pig or a sow. It has been remarked 
 that Virgil himself, in his Georgics — that is to say, in a 
 work in which he sang of Italian agriculture — did not 
 give these animals quite the place they deserved to filL 
 He only speaks of the pig two or three times ; and 
 again in one of these passages he has thought fit to 
 lend him an almost heroic attitude entirely out of 
 keeping with its nature : 
 
 " Ipse ruit dentesque sabellicus exacuit sus, 
 Et pede prosubigit terrarn.'' ^ 
 
 We no longer find the same timid precautions in the 
 JEJneid. He did not hesitate to introduce the white 
 sow and her little ones into it, nor did he ask himself 
 what the fastidious would think about it. Here again 
 we must in some degree approve his courage. 
 
 All agree that when Virgil reproduced the legend it 
 had been greatly modified by time ; but even his own 
 narrative of it admits of its being brought back to its 
 primitive form. Whatever he may pretend, it was not 
 created to explain the rise of Lavinium. Those who 
 first imagined this artless fable had Alba, then the 
 metropolis of the Latin League, in mind. They related 
 that they were one day assembled at the foot of Mount 
 Albanus, their sacred mountain, consulting the gods as 
 
 1 Georff., III. 255. 
 R
 
 258 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to the spot where they shoukl build their capital. 
 Suddenly, during the sacrifice, the pregnant sow they 
 were about to immolate escaped towards the mountain. 
 They followed her at a distance, and at the place 
 where she stopped to give birth to her young ones, they 
 founded their city. Legends of this kind were not 
 uncommon in the ancient mythology of the Aryan 
 races. At Bbvillte it is a bull, at Ephesus a boar, 
 which, escaping from the hands of the sacrificers, 
 indicated the spot where the town was to be raised. 
 Here the sow was preferred, because it is the animal 
 which it was customary to immolate on the occasion of 
 treaties of alliance, and the thirty little ones represented 
 the thirty cities composing the Confederation. As we 
 see, everything is simple and natural in the primitive 
 story, and we do not need an augur or an aruspice to 
 ■enable us to grasp its meaning. 
 
 Later, when the legend of .^neas was implanted 
 in Eome, and the Trojan hero was made the founder 
 of Lavinium, the sacred city of the Penates, it was 
 •desired to transplant the marvellous tale, which had been 
 invented for the ancient capital of the Latin League, to 
 the new one. But it could not be adapted to its 
 new purpose without undergoing some changes. It was 
 supposed that the white sow stopped where JLneas 
 built Lavinium ; but at the same time it was still 
 admitted that it had given its name to Alba, so the 
 prodigy found itself relating to two cities at once, 
 which is difficult to understand. Moreover, it was 
 imagined that the thirty little ones meant tlie thirty 
 years separating the foundation of the two cities. 
 Virgil was forced, hj the very subject he had chosen,
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 259 
 
 to adopt this last form of the legend, which was not, 
 as we have seen, the most simple and most natural. 
 But what mattered those little obscurities of detail in 
 the narration of a miracle ? The substance of the 
 adventure remained ; it was still a question of the sow 
 and her little ones, and people whose youth had been 
 charmed by these wonderful tales were happy to find 
 them again in Virgil's poem.^ 
 
 III. 
 
 LAVINIUM — ITS DECADENCE UNDER THE EMPIRE — WOR- 
 SHIP OF THE PENATES — VESTIGES OF THE ANCIENT 
 CITY — PRATICA — OUTLOOK FROM THE BORGHESE 
 TOWER — THE PLAIN OF THE LATIUM — LATIN AND 
 SABINE ELEMENTS IN THE ROMAN CITY. 
 
 By the prediction of the Tiber, we are now led to 
 speak of Lavinium. This town is often mentioned in the 
 yEneid, although it does not yet exist. This is because 
 in reality it forms the only link connecting the legend 
 of ^neas with the history of Eome. In itself a small 
 
 ^ Virgil has even introduced a new obscurity and inaccuracy into 
 the legend. Admitting the white sow to have been found, as he 
 says, on the banks of the Tiber, it should have been supposed that 
 she fled to the spot where Lavinium was to rise^ But he thought 
 it would be a ridiculous sight to show ^neas aud his soldiers running 
 for nearly eight kilometres after a sow, so he once more bravely made up 
 his mind, and had her immolated on the spot where she was found. But 
 then one no longer understands the expression "/s locvs urbis erit," 
 for Lavinium is six miles from the banks of the Tiber. Servius says we 
 must translate as if there were " m ca rcgione " — that is to say, in the 
 country, in the environs — which is very vague and arbitrary.
 
 260 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND YIRGIL. 
 
 hamlet in the midst of a solitary plain, it must be 
 very indifferent to the masters of the world. Virgil 
 several times made a point of reminding them of the 
 right it had to their respect and their affection. At 
 the very beginning of his work, Jupiter, consoling 
 Venus for her son's misadventures, unveils to her the 
 future reserved for his descendants. He first shows 
 her iEneas founding Lavinium, in order to establish 
 his homeless gods there. It is the starting-point of 
 those glorious destinies. Later, from Lavinium will 
 issue Alba, and Alba in its turn will give birth to 
 Rome, so that all the greatness of Eome is referable to 
 the founding of the city of ^neas. The Penates, for 
 whom he must build a dwelling on a hill of Latium^ 
 are the pledge of the eternal empire promised by the 
 gods to the nation who wear the toga : 
 
 " His ego nee metas rerum nee temjwra pono ; 
 Imiierium sine fine dedi." ^ 
 
 In Virgil's day the little town must already have 
 been half deserted. Such, indeed, was the common lot 
 of most of those he speaks of, and which make so great 
 a figure in his poem. He himself tells us, with regard 
 to Ardea, the capital of the Eutuli, " it has still a great 
 name, 1 nit its fortune is past." - I picture to myself 
 that Ardea was then, as now, a village of a few houses 
 surrounded by old walls, upon a steep hill. Strabo, 
 who went over the whole of this country in the time 
 of Augustus, tells us that, after the ravages of the 
 Samnites, it could not raise itself from its disasters, 
 
 Vi'«., I. 278. -Ibid., VII. 412.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 261 
 
 and that, of the ancient and illustrious cities dating 
 from ^neas, only vestiges remained. A hundred 
 years later Lucan bears witness to the same abandon- 
 ment. He says : " The sites of Veii, Gabii, and Cora 
 are marked by ruins. Where Alba rose, or the Penates 
 of Lavinium had their temple, nothing but uninhabited 
 fields are any longer seen." ^ He adds that everywhere 
 the walls of cities are too vast for their inhabitants ; 
 that the fields lack husbandmen, and that a single city 
 suffices to contain all the Eomans. He doubtless means 
 that this town has ended by absorbing Italy .^ Eome 
 was already making a vacuum around her, and from 
 the Augustan age it might be foreseen that she would 
 end by encircling herself with a desert. It is therefore 
 likely that most of the Latin towns, when Virgil knew 
 them, had already begun to assume the desolate look they 
 wear in our days. It was a reason for him to love 
 them more. They must have even pleased him by 
 their very sadness and their solitude ; and rich, flourish- 
 ing, populous, they would have inspired him with less 
 affection. His biographers relate that he felt ill at 
 
 1 Lucan, Phars., VII. 391. 
 
 2 Bonstetten, describing the state of this part of the country iu 
 1804, speaks very much like Lucan : " Some of the fifty-three nations 
 that formerly existed in Latium are represented by a single house. 
 The great city of Gabii is now merely the abode of a herd of cows. 
 Fidenae, where so many thousand men perished by the fall of an 
 amphitheatre, is a broken-down sheep-stall ; and Cures, the illustrious 
 country of Numa, an inn. Antemn?e, with its superb towers, Collatia, 
 Cenina, Veii, Crustumerium, and so many other towns which proved 
 the flourishing state of Latium, were swallowed up in a few years by 
 infant Rome, already taught to devastate the earth, and we are still 
 searching for the spot where they existed."
 
 262 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 ease in large, populous towns, and shunned them as 
 much as he could. On the other hand, he must have 
 visited these poor abandoned cities willingly. The 
 striking contrast between their ancient fortune and 
 their present wretchedness the more endeared them 
 to him, and one feels that he never speaks of them 
 without emotion. 
 
 Among all these half-ruined and deserted ancient 
 cities Lavinium had a particular importance. " Here," 
 said Varro solemnly, " liere are the Penates of the 
 lioman people " {ibi dii Penates nostri)} They had 
 shown in an important circumstance that they would 
 not dwell elsewhere. It was related that Ascanius 
 having tried to take them with him to the town 
 which he had built, they twice left their temple at 
 Alba, although the doors had been carefully shut, and 
 returned by night to Lavinium. They had to be left 
 there, since they would not leave their old home ; and 
 as they would have been angry had they lost all their 
 worshippers, six hundred inhabitants were sent, who were 
 forced to dwell there and offer them sacrifices.^ Thence- 
 forth Lavinium was entirely consecrated to their wor- 
 ship. It was a kind of holy town, like a few that are 
 still left in Italy, containing nothing but churches and 
 convents, and where only monks are met with. There 
 was no dearth of priests in Lavinium either, if we are to 
 believe the inscriptions, which mention a great number, 
 and even bid us observe the very characteristic circum- 
 stance, that they kept the ancient costume in all its 
 
 'Z)c Ling. Lat., V. 144. 
 
 "DcnyB of ihilicarnassu.s, A)U, Rom., I. 67.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 263 
 
 rigour, whereas at Eome it had been modified, in order 
 to make it more convenient.^ The Temple of the Penates 
 was doubtless the most important in the country. It 
 was much visited, but it not being allowed to penetrate 
 into the sanctuary, considerable uncertainty existed 
 as to what these gods might be. Some stated that 
 they were represented under the form of small seated 
 statues with spears in their hands, and others that they 
 were merely pieces of iron or bronze, not even formed in 
 the human shape. The devout Denys of Halicaruassus, 
 very much perplexed between these contrary assertions, 
 gets out of the difficulty by saying one must not speak 
 of that which the gods do not allow one to know.^ 
 However, it was not neccesary to know in order to 
 respect them, since they had worked miracles that 
 proved their power. It is said that two young maidens, 
 doubtless two vestals, having come to sleep in their 
 temple in order to be relieved of certain reproaches of 
 which they had been the object, one of them, who was 
 not quite stainless, was in the course of the night struck 
 by a thunderbolt, while the other slept at her side with- 
 out awaking.^ There were also at Lavinium other 
 religious edifices, which naturally claimed to go back 
 to the time of ^neas, and in their neighbourhood his 
 tomb was shown. " It is," says Denys, " a little mound, 
 about which have been disposed trees in admirable 
 order, and worthy to be seen." * In the Forum of the 
 city statues of bronze recalled some of the legends that 
 
 ' Servius, in ^^lu, VIII. 661. " Antiq. Rom., I. 67. 
 2 Servius, in ^En., III. 12. ^ Antiq. L'om., I. 6-1.
 
 264 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 had announced his prowess. As may be imagined, the 
 famous sow with its thirty little ones was not forgotten. 
 It was often in question in Lavinium. It was thought 
 they possessed the cabin where ^neas had immolated 
 it ; and what is still more surprising, the priests showed 
 the sow herself to visitors, preserved in brine."" We 
 thus see that the worship of relics is of ancient date 
 in Italy. 
 
 Holy towns are usually dull ones. People are so 
 busied there with sacred interests that worldly pleasures 
 are neglected, and so there is generally a lack of anima- 
 tion and gaiety. Lavinium could not have been an 
 exception to the common rule. Yet the old town had 
 its days of festivity. Every year, at fixed dates, priests 
 came there from Eome to celebrate ancient ceremonies, 
 and the first magistrates of the Republic, dictators, con- 
 suls, prfL'tors, came there to sacrifice to the Penates, 
 when they took office.- A general would not have 
 undertaken a great military expedition without having 
 first gone there to consult the gods. It is related that 
 when the consul Hostilius Mancinus went thither to 
 consult the augurs before leaving for Spain, the sacred 
 chickens fied into the woods. The consul paid no heed 
 to the warning, but went and got beaten by the Lusi- 
 tanians.^ But beyond these solemn occasions which 
 from time to time enlivened the town, it is probable 
 that life then was very monotonous, and that it declined 
 day by day. It is not known at what date and in con- 
 sequence of what events it was joined to its neighbour 
 
 ' ^'ilrl•o, Dcrc rust., II. 4, 18. -Scrviiis, in ^L'n., III. 12. 
 
 '' \'aluiiii() .\Iiixinii;.-s, I. 6, 7.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 265 
 
 Laurentium, the ancient city of Latinus, which was 
 drawing its last breath beside it. Thenceforth its 
 citizens took the name of Laurentes Lavinatcs, and the 
 town itself was sometimes called Laurolavinium. In- 
 scriptions show us that the Emperors made a few efforts 
 to arrest its decadence. It was naturally those most 
 zealous for the worship of the gods, or most friendly to 
 the ancient traditions, who chiefly cared to busy them- 
 selves about it ; for example, good Antoninus, who all 
 3 lis life showed so much respect for the old memories of 
 Kome, or Galerius, the ardent persecutor of the Chris- 
 tians. We still find in the correspondence of Symmachus, 
 the last of the pagans, a mark of affection towards this 
 town, which he calls " rcligiosa civitas." At this moment 
 Christianity was victorious, invasion was approaching, 
 and Lavinium was about to vanish entirely, with the 
 worship of the Penates. 
 
 Nothing now remains of the ancient town, and its 
 name is no longer found upon the map. Its situation, 
 however, may be given with accuracy. The learned 
 agree in believing that it was replaced by Pratica, and 
 everything proves that they are right. Like Lavinium, 
 Pratica is 16 miles (24 kilometres) from Eome, at 24 
 stadia (4 kilometres) from the sea, and about half-way 
 between Ostia and Antium. In turning up the soil at 
 haphazard many ancient remains have been found, 
 proving that on this spot must formerly have risen a 
 town of some importance; and as these remains are some- 
 times fragments of vases belonging to ancient buildings, 
 and sometimes pieces of marble and porphyry which 
 jecall the most sumptuous periods, Nibby concludes 
 that this city must go back to the most ancient times.
 
 266 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 and that it still existed under the Empire. Finally, 
 numerous inscriptions have been found at Pratica or in 
 the vicinity, some of them bearing the name of Lavinium, 
 which definitively settles all doubts. 
 
 Pratica occupies a plateau of slight extent, rising on 
 nearly every side precipitously from the plain. When 
 we have been round it, and seen how difficult of access 
 are the houses of the village, firmly supported as they 
 are by the rock, we easily understand the reasons iEneas 
 may have had for building his town in this place. He 
 found himself safe there against the unforeseen attacks 
 of the Eutuli or the Volsci, of all those peoples whose 
 habit and pleasure, according to Virgil, was to live by 
 rapine : 
 
 " Sempei-que recentes 
 Convedare juvat prccdas ct vivere rapto.'^ ' 
 
 On the other hand, the narrowness of the plateau ex- 
 plains that it could not long suffice a population which, 
 in the beginning, was continually on the increase.^ "We 
 have only to glance at Pratica in order to understand 
 the account of Livy, who tells us that Ascanius, seeing 
 that his father's town could not spread, resolved to quit 
 it and found a new one on Mount Albanus, between the 
 mountains and the lake. 
 
 Pratica can only be entered by one road, which is 
 
 ^jEn., VII. 759. 
 
 ^Pratica only occupies the site of the citadel of Lavinium. The 
 town itself probably extended into the plain, towards Ardea. Many 
 remains of w.'ills have been found in this direction, which may have 
 been the city's boundary. In any case it was small, and hampered in 
 its development by accidents of the ground.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 267 
 
 probably the one followed by the procession of consuls 
 and prjstors when they came to perform some sacred 
 ceremony at the Temple of the Penates. The roadway, 
 after circling the village for a short distance, rises to 
 it abruptly by a somewhat rude causeway, and enters it 
 beneath a gate which might be easily defended. All 
 here is evidently well j)repared to offer a safe asylum to 
 a few husbandmen desirous to protect themselves from 
 pillage. The same cause explains the founding of 
 Lavinium and Pratica. The people who, after the ruin 
 of the ancient town, assembled anew on this narrow 
 table- land, wished to find safety from the incursions of 
 the Barbary pirates who, until the taking of Algiers, 
 never ceased to infest these shores. When night fell, 
 the husbandmen hastened to quit the plain, climbed 
 into their little fortified enclosures, and the door once 
 well secured, they could at least sleep in peace. It is 
 thought that the village of Pratica,^ whose name is first 
 heard in the ninth century, was in the course of the 
 Middle Ages several times abandoned and rebuilt. As it 
 stands, it is not more than two or three centuries old. 
 It contains but one piazza and a few streets somewhat 
 less dirty than those of other Italian villages. The 
 piazza, regular and sufficiently large, has been decorated 
 with a few fragments of antiquity. These are the little 
 village's titles of nobility.^ There are capitals of 
 
 ' The primitive form of this word seems to have been "Patrica." Nibby 
 thinks this name must be derived from tha.t oi Pater Indiges — that is, of 
 ^neas — who was chiefly honoured at Lavinium, By its modern name 
 it woukl be the City, ^neas civitas Patris, 
 
 "The statues and inscriptions have been lately placed in the court" 
 yard of the Borghese Chateau.
 
 268 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 columns, fragments of statues, inscriptions in honour of 
 Antoninus and Galerius, and lastly, a sort of pedestal 
 bearing the words " Silvius ^Eneas, son of ^neas and 
 of Lavinia." If this monument was not the work of an 
 amateur of the sixteenth century, as it very possibly 
 may be, it is perhaps the base of some statue which 
 ornamented the Forum of Lavinium. One side of the 
 Piazza is formed by the front of a large house, devoid 
 of any architectural pretensions. This is the Palazzo 
 of the Borghese family. Pratica has belonged to them 
 for nearly three hundred years, and constitutes one of 
 their most important baronies. 
 
 This does not imply that the village is very populous. 
 It numbers but the seven or eight families who dare to 
 remain there all the year round. TJie rest of the 
 population is nomadic, and consists of peasants who in 
 the winter descend from the mountains, and return home 
 as soon as the heat approaches and the malaria begins 
 to be dangerous. It is much the same from one end of 
 Italy to the other, wherever marsh fever rages. Francois 
 Lenormant, when travelling in Grecia Magna, found the 
 custom again there.^ The colours in vvliich he painted 
 the miseries of those poor Calabrian peasants, who come 
 every year to work in tliis unwholesome soil, have not 
 been forgotten ; and I bear witness that the pictures he 
 drew of them produced the liveliest emotion in the 
 country itself : so true is it that one becomes indifferent 
 to spectacles which one has daily before one's eyes, and 
 that it is good for a stranger now and then to tell us 
 what happens in our own home. Not long since, 
 
 ^ La Grande Grice, by Francois Lenormant.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 269 
 
 M. de la Blanchere, who made a stay at Terracina and 
 courageously explored the Pontine marshes, had an 
 opportunity of observing and describing the same cus- 
 toms. There, too, the fields are deserted during half 
 the year — the emigrants arriving in the month of 
 October. Generally the same persons settle in the 
 same spots. They descend the Apennines and the 
 Abruzzi together, and come to resume their work. 
 "Each," says M. de la Blanchere, "goes to find his 
 ledra — that is to say, a clearing made by himself or a 
 predecessor — often by an ancestor — for families are 
 perpetuated during centuries upon the same soil. A 
 staccionata, or rough fence of brambles, contains 
 the beasts ; hive - shaped cabins shelter the people. 
 On his own account, or that of another, the occupant 
 carries on one or many of the thousand vocations of the 
 macchia — shepherd, cowherd, swineherd, for the most 
 part ; sometimes a woodcutter, and always a poacher 
 and a prowler, using the macchia without scruple, like 
 a savage of the virgin forest, he lives, and by his work 
 makes a revenue for his own and the soil's master, who 
 has confided his beasts to him — that is to say, when they 
 are not his personal property. Thus six or seven 
 months pass. June comes, the marslies dry up, the 
 pools of the forest are exhausted, the children tremble 
 with fever, the news from the country is satisfactory, and 
 in a fortnight the roads are covered with people going 
 back to the mountains again. Family by family, lestra 
 by lestra, the macchia empties. Only men exhorting 
 their horses, asses, or their women, laden with what is to 
 be brought away, are met with ; and those whom July 
 surprises in these regions are few indeed. The forest
 
 270 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 is abandoned to twenty species of gad-flies and insects, 
 which make life there impossible." ^ 
 
 This is what happens on almost all the coast of Latium. 
 I own, however, that at Ostia the picture seemed to me 
 sadder than M. Blanchere represents it. There the 
 immigrants are all husbandmen who come to sow the 
 ground and get in the crops. At night they crowd 
 together in cabins made of old planks covered with 
 straw. I visited one, narrow and long, which resembled 
 a passage. It had no windows, and was only lighted 
 by the doors placed at each extremity. The arrange- 
 ments were of the simplest ; in the middle the sauce- 
 pans in which the soup is made ; on eitlier side, in dark 
 recesses, men, women, and children lie pell-mell on 
 heaps of straw that are never renewed. Directly you 
 enter the cabin a foetid odour seizes you by the throat. 
 As you pass on, eyes unaccustomed to this darkness can 
 make out nothing. You only hear the moa?is of the 
 sick whom the fever holdi co their straw, and who lean 
 forward to ask the passer-by for alms. I should never 
 have believed that a human being could live in such a 
 hole. At Pratica there are at least houses decent 
 enough in appearance. They are empty half the year, 
 and much too full the rest of the time ; but the immi- 
 grants who crowd them have not to suffer like those 
 who wallow in the barracks at Ostia. The little village, 
 moreover, does not look very miserable. It even possesses 
 a great luxury in the shape of an ostcria con cucina, 
 which remains open during all the winter season, and 
 does not seem to lack customers. In spring the land- 
 
 ^ De la Blanchere, 2'crracinc, p. 11.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 271 
 
 lord takes flight like everybody else, only leaving a 
 wretched servant, a victim to the malaria, to take care 
 of the house. I found myself there with some people 
 of the country one day when it poured with rain ; for 
 want of anything better to do, they played at cards. 
 They were caporali, or labour-masters, and their 
 dignity was seen in their costume. They wore under 
 their large green-lined brown mantles a gallooned 
 waistcoat. These insignia, together with their short 
 breeches and pointed hats ornamented with feathers, 
 gave them a melodramatic air, of which they seemed 
 very proud. Looking at them, I thought that certainly 
 no village inn in France could offer a collection 
 of such types. The French peasant does not care to 
 assume theatrical poses, or to attract the attention 
 of strangers. On the contrary, he is so timid and 
 cunning that he will rather give himself an air of sim- 
 plicity and innocence in order that he may not be 
 mistrusted. One has to be careful not to judge him 
 quite by his appearance, or think him as foolish as he 
 looks. The peasantry of these parts have not the same 
 character. Nature has given them a ferocious look, and 
 to nature they willingly add. One would thiuk they 
 desired to inspire fear, and to appear more brigand-like 
 than they really are. But, however this may be, vulgar 
 faces are rarely found among them, and a glance at 
 them suffices to convince one that they belong to an 
 energetic and intelligent race. Since they all come 
 from the Appenines and the neighbouring heights, I 
 have no difficulty in beheving that I have before my 
 eyes descendants of the Marsi, the Equi, and the Sam- 
 nites, of all those rough mountaineers whom Rome had
 
 272 THE COUNTRY OF HOUACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 SO much difficulty in subduing, and who afterwards 
 helped her to subdue the world. 
 
 One of the curiosities of Pratica is the tower rising 
 from the middle of the Borghese l*alace. It is seen from 
 every direction, and serves to direct shepherds and 
 travellers in a country where beaten roads are not 
 always found. It was doubtless built to overlook the 
 vicinity at a period when unforeseen piratical attacks 
 were to be feared, and it enables one to penetrate all the 
 windings of the valleys, and observe all the shore from 
 Ostia to Porto d'Anzio. From the uppermost storey 
 the view is marvellous, but I will not proceed to 
 describe its beauties. However great the desire in 
 these high spots to cast one's eyes afar, and although 
 the spectacle of these beautiful lines of mountains that 
 close the horizon is incomparably grand, I own that I 
 feel rather tempted to look down at my feet. I am 
 absorbed by an entirely historical interest. I think of 
 Eome, whose belfries and houses I can distinguish, and 
 I endeavour to follow hence the phases of her 
 budding fortune. This ground which surrounds me oa 
 every side is Latium — " Old Latium " as it was called 
 (Latium vctus Prisci Latini). It is here, according to a 
 celebrated expression, " that Kome struck her first roots'*^ 
 {ex hac tenui radice erevit imperium ) ; it is in this little 
 corner of the land that the llomans must have become 
 imbued with their fundamental qualities. I take it in 
 entirely, and while carefully examining it, I ask myself 
 whether there is anything in the configuration of the 
 soil and the nature of the country to account for the 
 character of the inliabitants. 
 
 Prom this height at which the inequalities of the
 
 OSTIA AND LAYINIUM. 273 
 
 ground disappear, Latium seems to be a vast uniform 
 plain. On looking at it, a reflection of Schwegler's, from 
 which he drew important conclusions, occurs to my 
 mind.^ He bids us remark how easy to traverse and 
 how accessible to the stranger this plain appears to be 
 at first sight. Towards the south I see neither 
 mountains nor river separating it from the Volsci ; to 
 the north it is bathed by a navigable stream, the sea 
 bounds it to the west, and it possesses a long line of 
 coast. The ancients had already observed that the 
 countries bordering the sea are those which most 
 quickly attain to a brilliant civilization ; but that, in 
 general, they pay for this rapid progress by an early 
 decay. " They are prompt to change," says Cicero^ 
 "and greedy of novelty. They like to listen to all 
 those travellers, who bring them their ideas and their 
 customs with their wares. They end by resembling 
 those isles of Greece, more troubled and unstable in 
 their institutions than the wave that beats their 
 shores." ^ Happily, Latium is not quite what it seems 
 when viewed from aloft and from afar. This plain, at 
 first sight apparently quite unbroken, hides undulations 
 of ground, heights and valleys, which sometimes render 
 circulation sufficiently inconvenient. This navigable 
 river is not easy of access, on account of its shifting 
 sands ; this long coast has no natural ports. It follows 
 that the visits of the foreigner did not produce all their 
 usual effects. External influence doubtless made itself 
 felt, but it was tempered by a groundwork of natural 
 
 1 Ii67n. GeshicJde, I. 4. 
 ^Cicero, Be Hep., II. 4. 
 S
 
 274 THE COUNTRY OF HORA.CE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 qualities which nothing would quite destroy. I do not 
 know how ; but the taste for novelties and the love of 
 tradition blended. Commerce and industry did not 
 replace agriculture. Nature and the soil had made the 
 Latins husbandmen, and field-work was always the most 
 honoured of all vocations among them. But these 
 husbandmen do not remain isolated in their farms ; 
 they possess a certain intelligence of political life, and 
 feel the want of a national existence. Families group 
 together to form cities, and cities unite in a common 
 alliance to form a nation. It is not quite the same 
 among the people who were their nearest neighbours, 
 almost their brothers — the Sabines. I see before me 
 their mountains, forming a sombre line on the horizon. 
 In that country, scarcely accessible to people from 
 without, there dwelt an almost savage population of 
 husbandmen and shepherds, resolutely attached to their 
 old customs and their ancient beliefs, and resolved not to 
 change them. With regard to political organisation, they 
 remained faithful to patriarchal rule. Their ideal form 
 of government was family government, and they did not, 
 like the Latins, get so far as to establish veritable cities. 
 *' Their towns," says Strabo, " are scarcely hamlets." ^ 
 So Schwegler thinks that in the union of the two 
 peoples which formed the Roman nation, each had its 
 share and played its part. The Latins represent that 
 love of progress, those broad views, those humanitarian 
 instincts, which are the characteristic and the honour 
 of the Plebeians, while the Sabines, a race energetic but 
 narrow, severe to hardness, devout even to superstition, 
 
 1 Stral.o, V. 3.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 275 
 
 brought into the mixture that love of ancient usages, 
 that respect for old maxims, that spirit of resistance 
 and conservatism which animated the Patricians. The 
 struggle between these two opposite tendencies lasted, 
 under different forms, for six centuries, and explains the 
 whole of Eoman history down to the time of the Empire. 
 Many sages and patriots who were witnesses of it or 
 its victims deplored it bitterly. They believed and 
 have said that Eome would have been much happier 
 and greater could one of these two elements of discord 
 have disappeared. I think this a mistake, and that, in 
 combating, they restrained and tempered each other. 
 Their opposition prevented stability from becoming 
 routine and reform revolution. It may have rendered 
 progress slower, but it made it more sure ; and, thanks 
 to it, everything was done with order and in its due time. 
 The very struggle of the two hostile principles, far from 
 being a cause of weakness to Rome, is perhaps what 
 gave it most spring and motion. In these daily 
 assaults of which the Forum was the scene, characters 
 took that energetic temper, that ardour of generous 
 rivalry, that mettle, and that vigour, which, turned 
 against the stranger, conquered the world. 
 
 But we have wandered very far from our subject. 
 Eoman history is full of attraction, and if we give way 
 to the reflections suggested by the sight of the plains of 
 Latium and the mountains of the Sabina, we shall 
 not be able to stop. It is high time to descend from 
 the Borghese tower and return to the camp of ^'Eneas.
 
 276 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ^NEAS GOES TO SEE E\^ANDEU AT PALLANTEUM — THE TRO- 
 JAN CAMP AT OSTIA — IT IS BESIEGED AND ALMOST 
 TAKEN IN THE ABSENCE OF THE CHIEF — BURNING OF 
 THE SHIPS — EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS. 
 
 The god of the Tiber, in his prediction which kept 
 
 us so long just now, is not content to announce to 
 
 ^neas the destinies of his race, and give him exphana- 
 
 tions regarding the foundation of Laviniuni and Alba. 
 
 After busying himself with the future, he thinks of the 
 
 present, and teaches him how to escape from the 
 
 dangers that threaten him. All the Italian people 
 
 unite against him, and he cannot oppose them without 
 
 soldiers, so Tiber tells him how to find them. He 
 
 must implore help from the enemies of the Latins, and 
 
 he will be enabled to resist Turnus by the help of 
 
 Evander and the Etruscans. In order to procure these 
 
 precious alliances, and obey the orders of the gods,. 
 
 ^■Eneas leaves his camp, embarks on the Tiber, and 
 
 proceeds to visit King Evander in his little town of 
 
 I'allanteum. This is an ingenious means found by 
 
 Virgil to get out of one of the greatest difhculties of his 
 
 subject. His aim is to sing the glory of Rome ; and 
 
 Rome, at the time in which he places his epic, does not 
 
 yet exist ; she only figures there by means of the 
 
 predictions unceasingly made of her greatness and her 
 
 glory. To render her more present in this epic of 
 
 which she is the soul, the poet has had the happy idea 
 
 to send his hero to the very spot where she is one day 
 
 to rise. If he cannot sec, he must at least divine and
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 277 
 
 foreshadow her. On this predestined soil there is some- 
 thing of her already. At the foot of the Aventine, the 
 worship of victorious Hercules is celebrated, Salian 
 priests sing around the ara maxima ; on the slope of the 
 Palatine the sacred grotto of the Lupercal is shown, and 
 when the Arcadian shepherds pass before the bushes 
 which cover the rocks of the Palatine they think they 
 hear Jove shake his thunder, and take to flight, terrified. 
 Virgil's Eighth Book is one of those written by him with 
 most ardour and passion. This first view of Rome 
 before her birth entranced him, and the picture he drew 
 of it was of a nature to enrapture his contemporaries, 
 who loved to contrast this town of marble which 
 Augustus flattered himself with having built, not only 
 with the brick Rome of the Republican period, but 
 with the straw houses of the age of the kiugs. I wish 
 I had time to follow ^^neas in this excursion, in which 
 he salutes in advance the city destined to be the world's 
 marvel (rerum pulcherrima Roma) ; and I should like 
 also to accompany him to Coere, where the enemies of 
 Mezentius await him with their alliance. It would be 
 interesting to see how he speaks of the Etruscans, and 
 the impression which this strange race makes upon 
 him, but I must limit myself, for the journey would 
 take us too far. Let us be resigned, then, to allow him 
 to start alone, and not leave the camp where he has 
 placed his soldiers. 
 
 All who wrote the history of these ancient events 
 have spoken of the camp of ^neas, and agree in 
 calling it Troy {Troja, castra Trojana) ; but they place 
 it at different spots. Many supposed that ^neas 
 stopped between Lavinium and Ardea, near tlie temple
 
 278 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 raised to Venus, where a statue of the goddess was 
 shown, said to have been brought thither by himself.^ 
 
 Virgil decided for another part of the shore. 
 Faithful to his custom of connecting the present with 
 the past, he chose to consecrate his beginnings of an 
 important town by a great memory, and placed the 
 camp of -^neas at the very place where King Ancus 
 Marcius was afterwards to found Ostia. We have 
 seen the Trojans arrive at the mouth of the Tiber, and 
 penetrate into the " shady bed of the river." After 
 advancing a little way along its banks, they stop and 
 disembark. It is there that recent excavations have 
 brought to light the foundations of vast magazines that 
 encroached upon the Tiber, and still contain large 
 corn jars in which the food of the Eoman people was 
 placed in reserve. Ostia is now about four kilometres 
 from the sea; but we know that at the time of its 
 prosperity it was quite close to it. In the Ociavius of 
 Minucius Felix, tlie first work written by a Christian 
 in Latin, the author and his friends leave Ostia one 
 morning for a walk on the shore, and it seems from the 
 
 * Aiiotlier reason they had for making ^neas come to this spot 
 was that the sacred river Numicus or Numicius was generally placed 
 here. Danys of Halicarnassus and Pliny seem indeed to say that it 
 flows near Laviniiini, and it is usually identified with the Rio Torto, 
 or some other of these rivulets found between Pratica and Ardea. 
 But Virgil puts it quite close to Ostia. When on their arrival the 
 Trojans seek to tind out where it is they have landed, they send peojile 
 to explore the neighbourhood, and these rejJOit that they have just 
 seen the marshes where the Numicius rises {Fontis staqna Numici), 
 which would seem to point to a rivulet issuing from the Stagno di 
 Levantc and flowing towards the sea. However, it was said that this 
 rivulet had dried up, which explains the discussion as to its position.
 
 OSTIA A^"D LAVINIUM, 279 
 
 narrative of Miimcius that tliey only have^to go a few 
 steps. They soon arrive at their goal, and find them- 
 selves on a kind of carpet of sand, which the tide seems 
 to have spread at their feet to make an agreeable walk. 
 A century and a half before, when Virgil went over this 
 shore, it must have been in nearly the same state ; and 
 in accordance with his custom, he supposes that it had not 
 changed since the time of ^neas. Wishing to do for Ostia 
 what he had done for Eome, he has reverted to the time 
 when cabins of straw held the place of marble palaces. 
 His fancy, in love with simplicity and fond of contrasts, 
 has delighted to place the poor shelters of an im- 
 provised camp where he saw wide streets bordered by 
 porticoes and full of the most sumptuous merchandise, 
 and to assemble a few frightened soldiers in the very 
 places animated in his time by the movement and 
 noise of business. This camp of ^neas is a kind of 
 little town, imagined by the poet on the model of the 
 castra stativa in which the Eoman legions were wont to 
 retrench themselves when they had a rather long stay 
 to make. The boundary, according to an ancient usage, 
 is traced with the plough, a deep ditch is dug all 
 around, and the earth drawn from it serves to form an 
 entrenchment furnished with battlements and loopholes. 
 In front, like advanced sentinels, rise wooden towers, 
 joined to the fort by drawbridges, to be lowered or 
 raised according to the needs of the defence. The 
 town (as Virgil calls it) is only provided with a 
 rampart on the left side ; the right being built upon 
 the river, the poet supposes that it does not want pro- 
 tecting. This circumstance affords him the d^noudment 
 of one of his most brilliant episodes. He relates that
 
 280 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIUGIL. 
 
 Turnus, pursuing the fugitive Trojans, enters their 
 camp with them, unperceived. The fugitives' first 
 care is hurriedly to close their gates, and they thus 
 shut within their walls the very man they would have 
 avoided. On recognising the tuft of red feathers that 
 waves upon his head, and the lightnings flashed by his 
 shield, they are seized with unspeakable terror. Turnus 
 chases and slays them " like a tiger surrounded by 
 timid cattle." They end, however, by seeing that he is 
 alone ; and having united, they gradually force him to 
 retire from the combat. Before this crowd, every 
 moment increased by the timid who are taking heart 
 again, he withdraws little by little and step by step, 
 holding them all at bay, but exhausted by the unequal 
 contest. "The sweat rolls in black waves over his 
 body. He can no longer breathe, and his pantings 
 shake his breast." Borne back at length against the 
 Tiber, as there is neither retrenchment nor wall on 
 this side, he flings himself into the river, " which raises 
 him softly on its waters, and gives him back to his 
 companions cleansed from the soils of the fight.'' 
 
 This combat, which takes place while -^neas is 
 absent, fills the whole of the Ninth Book of the JEneid. 
 In the course of it, the Trojans, bereft of their chief, 
 are very badly used by Turnus, and besieged in their 
 camp, which is on the point of being taken. Of all 
 this struggle, which it would be of slight interest to 
 study in detail, I only give two episodes, not because 
 they are finer than the rest, but because they seem to 
 me to become somewliat clearer when read upon the spot, 
 and because they fit themselves better into the land- 
 scape, as it were.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 281 
 
 The first is that in which the poet tells us of the 
 metamorphosis of the Trojan vessels into sea-nymphs. 
 When ^neas landed on Italian soil, his first care was 
 to place his ships in safety. He could not think of 
 leaving them in the river. The famous port of Ostia, 
 before the works of Claudius and Trajan, was not a 
 port. Strabo tells us that the shoals caused by the 
 sand carried by the Tiber did not allow vessels of heavy 
 tonnage to approach the coast. " They cast their 
 anchors and remained at large, exposed to all the 
 roughness of the open sea. Meanwhile, light craft 
 came to take their merchandise and bring them other, 
 so that they left without having entered the river." ^ 
 ^neas, in order to avoid these dangers and place his 
 vessels in safety from the sands and the waves, has 
 them drawn up upon the shore. This custom, already 
 existent in the time of Homer, was not abandoned in 
 the second century of the Empire. 
 
 Minucius Felix tells us that while walking about 
 Ostia (at the very place where the Trojan fleet must 
 have been) he met with " ships taken out of the water, 
 and resting on wooden stays, in order to prevent them 
 from being soiled by the mud." ^ The vessels of 
 ^neas were placed on the left bank of the Tiber, in 
 the space of four stadia (720 metres) which separated 
 the Trojan camp from the sea. They had been hidden 
 as well as possible, and, like the camp itself, they were 
 defended by a sort of entrenchment on the side where 
 the river did not protect them. But they did not 
 escape Turnus. Going before the main body of his 
 
 1 Strabo, V. 3, 5. - Octavius, 3.
 
 282 THE COUNTRY OF HOKACK AND VIRGIL. 
 
 soldiers, who did not march fast enough, the chief of 
 the Eutuli, with a few chosen horsemen, turns on the 
 Trojan camp " like a famished wolf around a well- 
 filled, well-shut sheep-fold, when, through the night, 
 mid wind and storm, he hears the lambs bleat peace- 
 fully beneath their dams."^ While looking on all 
 sides for some opening through which to strike his foes, 
 who will not come out, he espies the vessels, and 
 prepares to hurl blazing torches against them. But at 
 this moment Cybele, mother of the gods, steps in and 
 saves them. Since they were built with trees of the 
 sacred forest of Ida, she will not have them perish lil^e 
 ordinary craft, and obtains from Jupiter leave to change 
 them into goddesses of the sea. She has only to say a 
 word. " At once the vessels break the bonds that held 
 them, and like plunging dolphins sink in the abyss. 
 Soon after, on the surface of the waves, as many youth- 
 ful nymphs were seen to rise as prows of bronze had 
 been along the shore." ^ 
 
 Naturally this miracle does not please Voltaire, and 
 we must believe that it caused some surprise even in 
 ancient times, since the poet feels it necessary to defend 
 it. Like the authors of the chansons dc gestc, who, after 
 relating anything incredible, never fail to state that 
 they read it in the Latin work of some well-informed 
 monk, Virgil invokes tradition. " It is a very old 
 story," he tells us, " but its fame has been preserved 
 throughout the ages." ^ This precaution shows us that 
 he foresaw some objection. He well felt that in his 
 work the tale he was about to tell bore quite a new 
 
 1 yEn., IX. 59. - Ibid., 117. ' IbicL, 79.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 283 
 
 character. In Homer's poems and in his own the gods 
 very frequently intervene ; but for the most part it is 
 not to disarrange the regular order of the world, and 
 produce effects contrary to good sense. The super- 
 natural, as they understood it, is usually a very natural 
 thing. In those primitive times which we are depict- 
 ing, men were accustomed to attribute all that happened 
 to them to a divine influence. 
 
 Wlien they watched some violence of the elements, 
 or when they felt some furious ardour arise in their 
 hearts, they were tempted to think that the divinity 
 could not be a stranger to it. " Is it true," says one of 
 Virgil's heroes, " that the gods inspire in me a great 
 design ; or does not each of us make a god of the 
 passions of his soul ? " ^ It is in consonance with this 
 idea that the ancient poets so often represent Mars, 
 Minerva, and Apollo going about the field of battle, and 
 at the critical moment appearing to a combatant to 
 stir up his ardour or suggest some enterprise to him, 
 and it almost always happens that they only advise 
 him what should have occurred spontaneously to his 
 own mind. When Virgil shows us Alecto inspiring the 
 Italians with anger on the coming of Jjlneas, we cannot 
 help thinking that the Italians must of themselves have 
 felt very irritated at seeing a stranger land among them, 
 and without more ado come to settle on their lands, 
 under pretext that the gods have given them to him. 
 Elsewhere he shows us Juno, Venus, and Cupid plot- 
 tins together to make Dido fall in love with ^neas. 
 Do we need the intervention of so many divinities to 
 
 1 jEn., IX. 184.
 
 284 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 explain to us that a woman, young, beautiful, and who 
 has loved much, one day takes a fancy to a hero who 
 relates his misfortunes and his adventures to her in so 
 touching a manner ? We are not surprised that ^neas, 
 when he begins to love Dido, forgets for her that Italy 
 which the Fates promise him ; and we also understand 
 tliat when he has nothing more to desire, in the first 
 weariness of sated love, he begins to think of it again. 
 Was it absolutely necessary to trouble Mercury in 
 order to remind him of it ? It were possible, then, in 
 the examples I have just given, to suppress the marvel- 
 lous without grave damage to the action ; for it is 
 only a means of better explaining natural incidents 
 which, strictly speaking, could explain themselves. 
 But the legend we are studying has not quite the same 
 character. It is a downright miracle altering the laws 
 of nature. 
 
 It was imagined to amuse the mind for a moment by 
 the unexpectedness and strangeness of the invention, 
 and is indeed a wonder of fairyland, foreshadowing 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
 
 Of the other story I will say scarcely anything, for 
 fear of not saying enough ; it is the episode of Nisus and 
 Euryalus. Virgil has put all his soul into it, which does 
 not prevent everything in it from being exact and pre- 
 cise, so that on the spot the least details can be followed 
 and understood. In a purely imaginative narration the 
 poet gives us the complete illusion of truth. Here is 
 the camp of yEneas as we have just described it, 
 between the Tiber, the plain of Laurentum, and the 
 sea. We first assist at the military vigil of the Trojans, 
 in face of a threatening enemy. They are uneasy
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 285 
 
 about the absence of their chief, and fear to succumb 
 on the morrow beneath the attacks of Turnus. Nisus, 
 who guards a gate with Euryalus, reveals to him that 
 he has formed a plan to cross the encampment of the 
 Eutuli, and go and inform ^neas of the danger which 
 his soldiers are exposed to. In lines impossible to 
 forget Virgil relates the conversation of the two friends 
 and their noble struggle, a dispute between tenderness 
 and heroism, in which heroism finally triumphs. He 
 then takes them to the assembly of the cliiefs. While 
 the soldiers sleep, the chiefs standing in their midst, 
 leaning upon their long lances, seek some means to warn 
 ^neas, when the two friends come to announce that 
 they have undertaken the enterprise. Nisus knows 
 the way that must be followed in order to reach him. 
 Beneath that hill which he points out to the right, he is 
 sure to find a road that in a few hours will bring him 
 to Pallanteum, the nearest houses of which he has seen 
 from afar in his adventurous hunting excursions.^ 
 Accompanied by the good wishes of lulus and the Trojan 
 chiefs, they start. Here our topographical knowledge 
 enables us to follow them step by step. Virgil tells us 
 •' they left by the gate nearest to the sea," and we are 
 at first rather surprised at this. It is just the contrary 
 road to the one they might have been expected to take, 
 since by following this direction they turn their backs 
 on Pallanteum. Are we to believe, with Bonstetten, 
 that the course of the Tiber then approached the large 
 marsh known as the Stcigno di Levantc ; that, towards 
 
 ^ u^n., IX. 244. Bonstetten calls attention to the fact that from 
 Castel Decimo the houses of the Roman outskirts are plainly seen.
 
 286 THE COUNTKY OF HORACP: AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Rome the morass and the river joining, formed, as it 
 were, a boundary to the camp of xEneas, and that there 
 was no issue on this side ? Or is it not more simple to 
 suppose that Nisus and Euryalus cliose the way skirting 
 the sea, because it was least defended ? Nisus, in fact, 
 has remarked that the liutuli, who have passed the 
 night in playing and drinking, do not keep guard. 
 Hardly any fires shine in their camp. Plunged in 
 sleep and drunkenness, some are stretched on the grass, 
 while others are more softly couched on heaped-up 
 carpets ; all are sleeping with a will. So the two 
 friends easily effect a great slaughter. They even tarry 
 longer than they should over this easy victory, and, 
 tempted by the rich booty they have won, lose time in 
 carrying it off. Poor Euryalus, quite a youth, with the 
 vanity of his age, cannot refrain from covering himself 
 with brilliant arms, which, struck by a moonbeam, will 
 presently betray him and cause his death. They at 
 last perceive that day approaches, that they have got to 
 the extremity of the Rutuli camp, and that they must 
 hasten to leave it. 
 
 They now change the direction of their way. The 
 poet has told us that at starting they found two roads 
 before them : one doubtless leading straight to the sea, 
 the other turning to the left, skirting the shore, and 
 holding the place of the Via Severiana, constructed by 
 Severus, from Ostia to Terracina. As long as they 
 were traversing the camp of Turnus, Nisus and Eury- 
 alus followed the latter road. On leaving it, they turn 
 to the left, their intention doubtless being to take the 
 end of the Stagno di Levantc, and thence proceed in a 
 straight line to the city of Evander. In order now to
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 287 
 
 go from that spot to Eome, we should have to make 
 I\talafede or Castel Decimo by some cross-road, and 
 take the Via Ostiensis or the Via Laurentina, which 
 would quickly bring us there. So we can very clearly 
 picture to ourselves where the unfortunate youths were 
 when the Volscians, coming from Laurentum to bring 
 Turnus part of his troops, perceived them. They must 
 have been close to that fine park of Castel Fusano one 
 never fails to go and see when visiting Ostia, at the spot 
 where the Selva Laurentina begins. Virgil thus de- 
 scribes the forest they tried to cross : 
 
 " Silvafuit late dumis atque illice nigra. 
 Horrida, quam densi complebant undique sentes ; 
 Rara inr occultos Inrehat semita calks." ^ 
 
 Bonstetten bids us remark that this description has 
 not ceased to be true. Now, as in the time of ^neas, 
 the whole of this region abounds in impenetrable 
 thickets where bushes and brambles interlace, and it 
 is impossible not to lose one's way. I remember a little 
 wood between Castel Fusano and Tor Pateruo which I 
 was so imprudent as to enter, and from which I only 
 escaped with much diflficulty and many scratches, very 
 far from tlie place whither I desired to go. Evidently, 
 liad Volscians pursued me with 300 horsemen, I should 
 not have saved myself. Yet Nisus manages to get off. 
 The poet, bent on being precise above all things, tells 
 us he had got to that spot called later " the Alban field," ^ 
 
 ' ^n., IX. 381. 
 
 * I have some difficulty in understanding how this passage of the 
 ^neid could have given interpreters so much trouble. It is clear 
 that neither the town founded by Ascanius, nor, as Heyne supposes, 
 the lake situated at the foot of Mount Albano, is here in question.
 
 288 THE COUNTKY OF IIOKACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 when lie saw that he was alone. Euryalus, less 
 skilful and resolute, and encumbered by the spoil with 
 which he had loaded himself, had lingered on the road 
 Nisus does not waver ; he plunges into the forest, and 
 returns to die with his friend. 
 
 I will not be so imprudent as to relate their death when 
 Virgil has so ably done so. I prefer to leave the reader 
 the pleasure of going over the entire episode again in the 
 jtEneid. This pleasure will be complete if he have the 
 •T^ood fortune to read this admirable narrative at Castei 
 Fusano itself — that is to say, in the place that inspired 
 it. I can imagine none in the world where the soul 
 could better yield itself up to this grand poetry. In 
 our bustling towns it is very difficult to abstract one- 
 self from the present ; it seizes on us, and holds us fast 
 on every side. At Castei Fusano nothing draws u& 
 away from the memories of antiquity. In order to 
 belong quite entirely to Virgil, I would rather'not have 
 before my eyes even the stern palace of the Chigi, as 
 much like a fortress as a country house. I would 
 place myself opposite the avenue paved with the slabs 
 of the Via Severiana, and leading to the sea, beneath 
 the shade of those great parasol pines, the most beauti- 
 ful found in the Eonian Campagna. " This shade,"^ 
 says Bonstetten very happily, " is like no other. You 
 
 These are much too far from the shore, and it would have taken 
 Nisus a long day's journey to go and return, whereas he must have 
 been much less than an hour on his way. Virgil means some spot on 
 the territory of Lanrentum to which, for reasons unknown to us, had 
 been named loci Albani, and was so called in his day. The care he 
 takes to point it out well shows the desire he had to be precise, and 
 connect the scene with a definite spot.
 
 OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 289 
 
 walk between the gigantic trunks of these trees as 
 between columns, and although in a wood you see 
 the sky and the horizon all round. The eye reposes 
 gently, as if under a gauze veil, in a light having 
 neither the darkness of shadow nor the brightness of 
 the sun. In order to be aware of the light parasol 
 spread out in the air between the sky and earth, you 
 must raise your head." Certainly, as T have already 
 said, Virgil's verses may be understood and enjoyed 
 everywhere ; but it seems to me that in this solitude 
 and this great silence, in the midst of this fine park 
 surrounded by a desert, and among all these relics of 
 the hoary past one finds in them one charm more. 
 Perhaps, too, seeing how exactly places have been 
 described and scenes narrated, we better understand 
 how it is that a work of imagination, a creation of the 
 poet, should have become for us more living and more 
 true than many a real story, and how the prediction of 
 Virgil was accomplished, who announced to his person- 
 ages that nothing could efface their names from the 
 memories of men : 
 
 " Fortunati avibo, si quid mea carmina j^ossunt ! 
 Nulla dies ujiquam memori vos eximet mvo." ^ 
 
 1 u^7i., IX. 466.
 
 290 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 IV. 
 
 LAUKENTUM. 
 I. 
 
 TENTH BOOK OF THE ^NEID — ASSEMBLY OF THE GODS — 
 RETURN OF ^NEAS — WAR IN VIRGIL'S POEM — HIS 
 PORTRAYAL OF THE DIFFERENT ITALIC RACES — WHY 
 HE DID NOT PAINT THEM MORE DISTINCTLY. 
 
 An the end of the Ninth Book of the JEndd, the 
 Trojans are besieged in their camp during the absence 
 of their chief. The attempts made by them to warn 
 him have failed ; they have lost their bravest soldiers, 
 and their afiairs seem desperate ; but fortune is about 
 to come back to them with the return of vEneas, and 
 thenceforth their success will continue to grow until 
 the end of the poem. We have arrived, then, at one of 
 those decisive moments when events are about to take 
 a new turn. So Virgil abruptly breaks off his narrative, 
 and transports us from the earth to the sky, in order to 
 assist at an assembly of the gods. 
 
 It is a very brilliant episode, and very carefully worked 
 out, which is the more remarkable from its being the 
 only one of the kind in the yEneid. If Virgil did not 
 imitate Homer, who so often represents the gods 
 assembled and debating together, it is doubtless because 
 he felt some embarrassment as to doing so. It is in 
 such scenes that the Homeric gods most willingly give 
 way to all the violence of their humours ; and this 
 Adolence is little in keeping with the idea formed by a 
 more enlightened age of divine majesty. Virgil, while
 
 LAURENTUM. 291 
 
 on the whole retaining the old divinities, aimed at 
 making them more grave and decent, and this attempt 
 was attended with some dangers. We can only accept 
 the Homeric gods by allowing our imagination to go 
 back to the age of Homer. In order that the simplicity 
 of certain details may not wound, it must abandon 
 itself entirely to the past, and believe itself to live 
 therein ; but when we imprudently ask their acceptance 
 in connection with the present time, the imagination at 
 once becomes more fastidious, and, the illusion once 
 dissipated, contrasts irritate, and the corrections we 
 try to apply to the original figure, with the new 
 features we add, only serve to cast the strangeness 
 of the rest into higher relief. In the assembly of the 
 gods in the Tenth Book, although Jupiter has become 
 more majestic and dignified, we are less inclined to 
 congratulate him on the progress he has perhaps made 
 than struck by the extent to which he falls short of 
 the divine idea. Brought into a less unsophisticated 
 medium, we find that the speeches of Venus and Juno 
 contain outbursts of language, subtleties of reasoning, 
 and a whole rhetorical mechanism which seems to us 
 very much out of place in Olympus. We are above all 
 displeased to see that all this discussion leads to nothing. 
 Jupiter, who begins by appearing very angry, and w^ho 
 seems to say that he is about to form the most serious 
 resolves, ends by declaring, amid thunder and lightning 
 and invoking the Styx to witness his words, that he 
 will do nothing at all, and that he lets events take theii* 
 course {Fata viam invenient)} It was not worth while 
 
 1 ^11., X. 113.
 
 292 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 to call together the whole of the celestial body for so 
 little. This celebrated scene, then, which opens the 
 Tenth Book in so brilliant a manner, seems to me to 
 have only one result ; it indicates with great solemnity 
 that we have got to one of the chief crises of the 
 action.^ 
 
 It is, in fact, directly after the assembly of the gods 
 that fortune changes. Very early in the morning, 
 Turuus, hoping to carry the Trojan camp before succour 
 arrives, resumes the attack. The unfortunate soldiers, 
 who were so hardly treated the day before, and who 
 had little hope of escape, " look sadly down from the 
 towers, and their thinned ranks can scarcely man the 
 ramparts." ^ Turnus redoubles his efforts, attacks all 
 the gates at once, throws flaming torches on the towers, 
 and thinks himself sure of success, when suddenly a 
 cry rings out upon the walls, a cry of joy and deliver- 
 ance. It is ^neas who is coming with the thirty 
 vessels of the Etruscans. The sun, rising at this 
 moment above the Alban mountains, strikes his shield, 
 and the flashes are easily seen from the Trojan camp, 
 situated, as we know, four stadia from the sea. 
 
 Read in the poem, the events that follow appear 
 
 ^ The only positive result of tins assembly of Olympus is that 
 Jupiter, in his opening speech, prohibits all the gods from meddling in 
 the quarrel of the Trojans and the Latins, and undertakes in his last 
 not to meddle in it himself. In the upshot, neither the gods nor 
 Jupiter abstain from taking part in the fight. I am therefore greatly 
 tempted to believe that Virgil composed this brilliant digression 
 separately, and added it, so that he had no time to harmonise it well 
 V. ith the rest. 
 
 - yEn., X. 121.
 
 LAURENTUM. 293 
 
 somewhat confused, but they develop themselves, on 
 the contrary, with great clearness when studied upon 
 the spot. xEneas had caused the cavalry given him by 
 Evander, and reinforced by that of Tarchon, to take the 
 land route, while he himself brought the Etruscan fleet 
 to the mouth of the Tiber. The road to be followed by 
 the cavalry and the spot where it was to await him 
 were settled in advance. All has been carried out 
 exactly, and the cavalry has passed the Tiber some- 
 where between the Trojan camp and the Pallanteum. 
 In order to escape Turnus, who keeps upon his guard, 
 and wishes, above all, to prevent help from being 
 brought to the besieged, it has been obliged to go a 
 rather long way round, and has perhaps even skirted 
 the Stagno di Levante. The poet tells us nothing of all 
 these movements ; but lets eachimai^ine them accordina: 
 to his fancy. But it is certain that the cavalry has 
 also arrived quite close to the sea, since Pallas, 
 Evander's son, who has come in the ship of ^neas, 
 manages to join it and put himself at its head. This, 
 then, is the situation of the combatants when Turnus, 
 still besieging the Trojans, without seeming to suspect 
 what threatens him, hears their cry of joy 
 and the distant salutation they address to their chief. 
 Then he, too, turns to the ocean, and sees the Etruscan 
 fleet nearing the shore. Hereupon, leaving a few soldiers 
 around the walls, he rushes to make a furious attack on 
 the newcomers. The combat goes on in two places, 
 at once — towards the mouth of the Tiber, where yEneas 
 has just disembarked with the Etruscans, and a little 
 farther on, towards Castel Fusano, where Evander's 
 cavalry, commanded by Pallas, find themselves for a
 
 294 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRCxIL. 
 
 moment very much embarrassed among trunks of trees, 
 and large stones rolled down by the waters of a torrent.^ 
 After a bloody struggle, the Latins give way, Turnus 
 being withdrawn from the combat by a stratagem of his 
 sister. The Trojan youth leave the camp where they 
 were shut up, and all the troops of ^neas unite 
 under his hand. 
 
 This Book and the two following, like the one pre- 
 ceding them, are almost entirely taken up with 
 descriptions of battle. A certain monotony results, 
 which explains the severe judgment sometimes passed 
 against the end of the JEneid. It was unfortunately 
 a necessity of the subject chosen by Virgil, and he 
 could not escape it. Since ^neas must conquer by 
 arms the country where he is to settle, of course the 
 poet had to sing of war. He did not love it, however, 
 and always remembered that it had troubled his youth. 
 At twenty-six years of age, when he was given up to 
 the pleasures of country life and the love of the Muses, 
 he had seen with terror the undisciplined legions of 
 Antony and Octavius pass, ravaging all upon their way. 
 They returned soon afterwards, made more insolent 
 by victory, and claiming from their chiefs the rewards 
 they had been promised, and he had nearly lost his 
 life in defending his little field from them. We must 
 
 ^ This seems to Boiistetten very improbable. "The Tiber," he 
 says, "never rolled rocks." I add that the Arcadian horsemen do 
 not fight ou the banks of the Tiber, but a little farther on. The 
 mountains are very far from the spot where they are placed, and the 
 water flowin;? from them would fall into the Sfagno di Lcvaiitc, which 
 bars the way. So it is very difficult to understand what Virgil means 
 in this passage.
 
 LAURENTUM. 295 
 
 not be astonished that he should have retained a sort 
 of horror of war. Peace was his ideal and his dream. 
 He loved to foresee it in the future, and hailed in advance 
 a happy time when differences would no longer be 
 settled by arms, when all old quarrels would be for- 
 gotten, and when concord and justice would at length 
 reign over the world. 
 
 " Aspera turn positis mitescent scecula bellis. 
 Cana Fides et Vesta, Remo cum frate Quirinus 
 Jura dabunt,"^ 
 
 and among the reasons he had to love Augustus — the 
 strongest, certainly — was his having closed the Temple 
 of Janus and bidden the Empire be at peace. At the very 
 moment when forced by the necessity of his subject to 
 tell of battles, he never ceases to load war with the 
 hardest epithets (horrida, insana iella ; lacrimahile 
 helium). He puts himself on the side of the mothers 
 who curse it, and, in a deathless line, shows them at 
 the first noise of battle pressing their children to their 
 breasts : 
 
 " Et pavidce matres pressere ad pectore natos." ^ 
 
 Nor could he help communicating this feeling of his 
 to his hero, ^neas makes war as Virgil sings it — very 
 much in spite of himself. 
 
 It may indeed be said that Homer sometimes talks 
 like Virgil. It also happens to him to be deeply 
 touched by the ills inflicted on men by war. When a 
 young man dies, he pities him " for sleeping a brazen 
 sleep far from his wife, of whom he has received but 
 
 1 ^n., I. 291. "^n., VII. 518.
 
 296 THE COUNTRY OF HOR.VCE AND YIRGIL. 
 
 few caresses." ^ He has words full of melancholy on 
 the fate of poor mortals carried off, like the leaves of 
 trees,^ but it is only a flash. Once plunged into the 
 scrimmage, he is seized with the intoxication of combat. 
 He triumphs with the victor, he strikes the vanquished 
 without ruth, he is full of violent insults and cruel 
 ironies, and it seems natural to him for a warrior to 
 threaten his enemies " to eat their quivering flesh, to 
 spill their brains like wine, and to reach the infant 
 even in its mother's womb." ^ He finds no greater 
 happiness for Jupiter than " to sit apart from the 
 other gods and rejoice in his glory, while he watches 
 the glint of the bronze and the warriors who slay and 
 are slain." * How strange is the mature of the poet ! He 
 understands everything, and everything enchants him ! 
 He describes contrary sights with a like pleasure, feels 
 opposed sentiments with the same force, and puts 
 himself equally into all that he does without showing a 
 marked preference for anything. This is doubtless one 
 of the reasons which have caused his existence to be 
 doubted, although it is of course impossible to imagine a 
 work without an author. A man's personality is shown 
 by the qualities which dominate him, and it is usually 
 the absence of some among them that throws the others 
 into relief. So Homer, who seems to have all in the 
 same degree, appears to us less living and less real 
 than Virgil, whose character is drawn and defined as 
 much by what is lacking in him as by what he possesses. 
 It must be owned tliat the incomparable gentleness of 
 
 ' Iliad, Xr. 210. "-Ibid., VI. 147. 
 
 ^Ibld., XX. 346; YI. 9. * Ibid., XI. 75.
 
 LAUEENTUM. 297 
 
 soul, which is its chief feature, little predisposed him 
 to be the bard of battles. He has done his best to 
 imitate his great predecessor ; he, too, represents in- 
 solent, implacable warriors, cutting off arms and legs, 
 insulting the enemy before fighting him, jeering at him 
 when vanquished, and treading upon him when he is 
 dead. But do what he will, his heart is not in all these 
 horrors, and we always feel that the gentle poet 
 has to do himself a violence when he must be cruel. 
 Whatever talent he exhibits in these descriptions, he 
 is no longer quite himself in them, and they give us 
 little pleasure. 
 
 Yet it seems there was a means of introducing a 
 little variety into the accounts of these combats. This 
 was to profit by the diversities existing among the 
 Italic races before Eome united them under her 
 dominion, and describe each of them with its peculiar 
 manners and distinguishing features. He has exactly 
 tried to do so, and this effort deserves the more to be 
 remarked, because it was an innovation. In Homer, 
 the Greeks nowise differ from the Trojans, and exactly 
 resemble each other. The famous catalogue of the 
 Second Book of the Iliad contains scarcely anything 
 but proper names and a few general epithets. This 
 long enumeration of nations that took part in the 
 Trojan War is, in itself, of but small interest.^ What 
 gives it its importance is that later on Greek cities 
 considered it a title of nobility to figure there. But 
 no difference appears between them. Virgil, too, 
 
 1 See the enumeration of the Italian warriors in the Seventh Book, 
 line 647 to the end.
 
 298 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 when he placed at the end of the Seventh Book of 
 the jEneid a list of the Italic peoples allied to Turnus, 
 chiefly desired to glorify their past, and give them an 
 antiquity that would do them honour ; but he does not 
 content himself with drily enumerating them, he adds 
 to their names some mention of their histories, curious 
 particulars concerning their usages, with descriptions 
 of their costumes and arms. He shows us, for example, 
 the Volsci, the Hernici, and the people of Praeneste and 
 Anagnia, who wear a wolf-skin upon their heads, and 
 who march to battle with one foot bare and the 
 other with a leather covering; the Falisci and the 
 mountaineers of Soracte, who advance singing the 
 praises of King Messapus, the horse-tamer ; the Marsi, 
 whose chief is a priest skilled in the art of charming 
 serpents ; the Osci, the Aurunci, and the Sidicii, armed 
 with a short javelin which they launch by means of a 
 strap, and with a curved sword ; the inhabitants of 
 Caprte, of Abella, and of the banks of Sarnus, wearing 
 cork helmets and carrying long lances which they use 
 in the Teutonic manner. All these details of pictur- 
 esque history, not yet hackneyed, must have occasioned 
 the contemporaries of Virgil the liveliest pleasure, and, 
 indeed, he was considered as a great archaeologist and 
 antiquary ; but, in our days, we have become more exact- 
 ing. We have been spoilt by pictures of this kind 
 being heaped upon us, and never have enough of them. 
 Many, instead of being thankful to him for what he has 
 done, are tempted to find that he stopped too soon. 
 It appears to them that he has not painted the various 
 Italic nations in strokes sufficiently marked and 
 distinct, and they especially resent his not having
 
 LAUKENTUM. 299 
 
 made more of the Etruscans, of whom he speaks still 
 less than of the Latins. If we except a word he 
 says in passing about their taste for gaudy costumes 
 and glittering arms, he indeed only emphasizes one 
 side of their character — their passion for good cheer 
 and women. Tn the midst of a battle, their chief 
 Tarchon, who sees them fleeing before Camillus, re- 
 proaches them " with loving only to sit at a well- 
 furnished table beside a full cup, and with only 
 having courage for Venus and her nocturnal combats." ^ 
 These are vivid strokes, it is true, but they would not 
 have sufficed a modern poet. He would have given 
 greater relief and a more original attitude to this 
 strange people, of whom an ancient author already said 
 that in its language and mode of life it resembled no 
 other nation in the world.^ Virgil did not choose to 
 do so, and for this he doubtless had some reason. The 
 writers of antiquity, historians as well as poets, were 
 above all artists, and their first care was the unity of 
 their works. They did not treat the various parts 
 irrelatively, but held that each of them should add 
 to the general effect. Our authors have not exactly 
 the same cares. In the romance of Salammho, where 
 Flaubert seems to have undertaken to remake with 
 realistic treatment the prose epic of Chateaubriand, he 
 is brought, like Virgil, to enumerate the different 
 peoples who form the army of Carthaginian mercenaries. 
 This method is very simple. He merely gathers from 
 everywhere, without choosing, all the archteological 
 curiosities he can find, to dress up his characters in. 
 
 "* jEn., XI. 735. -Denys of Halicarnassus, I. 30.
 
 300 THE COUNlTtY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 He describes successively "the Greek with his slim 
 waist, the Egyptian with his high shoulders, the big- 
 calved Cantabrian, the Libyans daubed with vermilion 
 and looking like coral statues, the Cappadocian bow- 
 men, who with the juice of plants paint great flowers 
 on thin bodies," etc. Each of these traits may be 
 striking in itself, but the whole forms the most incon- 
 gruous and bizarre picture possible to imagine. It is not 
 an army, or even a crowd ; it is a masquerade. It is 
 hard to understand how men, wdiom we know to have 
 differed so utterly from each other, could have been 
 brought to combine in common action, to become the 
 instrument of a single will, and, under Hannibal's 
 leadership, to bring about the destruction of the Eoman 
 legions. In his striving after absolute accuracy of 
 detail, Flaubert seems to have failed to impress us with 
 an idea of the truth of the whole ; he gives us a series of 
 geMre pictures instead of composing a great historical 
 masterpiece, as was his original intention. It is a 
 serious fault ; and wlien we come to see the bad effects 
 produced in his work by over-colouring, I think we 
 shall be less tempted to reproach Virgil with the 
 sobriety of his descriptions. 
 
 The battles in the yEneid are treated in the same 
 manner as the battles in the Iliad : they are given their 
 proper value. Virgil, like Homer, alternates general 
 melees with hand-to-hand fights ; and it is not to be 
 denied that after a time this proceeding becomes some- 
 what monotonous. His description of the single 
 encounters is sometimes very fine. We take great 
 pleasure, for example, in carefully studying the struggle 
 between Turnus and Pallas, between ^neas and Lausus
 
 LAURENTUM. 301 
 
 and Mazentius ; but we take less interest in the accounts 
 of the general skirmishes ; that is to say, in descrip- 
 tions of warriors who slay and are slain, without always 
 being able to make out to which side they belong : 
 
 " Cccdicus Alcathoum obtruncat, Sacrator Hijdaspem. 
 Partheyiiumque Rapo." 
 
 On this account I spare the reader all the details of the 
 battles which were fought around the Trojan camp. 
 It will- be enough for him to know that, at the end of 
 the Tenth Book, the Eutuli are completely vanquished 
 and pursued by ^neas as far as Laurentum, whither 
 we are about to follow him. 
 
 11. 
 
 LAURENTUM — HOW THE OLD TOWN DISAPPEARED — WHERE 
 COULD IT HAVE BEEN SITUATED ? — CANAL OF THE 
 STAONO DI LEVA NTU— THE SELF A LAURENTINA 
 — THE BOARS OF LAURENTUM — ASPECT OF THE 
 SHORE — PLINY'S VILLA. 
 
 This is not too easy an undertaking, for nothing 
 remains of Laurentum. It was said that the ancient 
 town built by Faunus, where King Latinus dwelt with 
 Amata his wife and his daughter Lavinia at the time 
 when ^neas set foot in Italy, was later on abandoned 
 for Lavinium, as Lavinium was for Alba, and Alba 
 for Eome. It continued, however, to live on obscurely, 
 while Eome was accomplishing her great destiny, 
 although so well forgotten, that in 565, during the
 
 302 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 fcrice Latino:, they forgot to apportion it part of the 
 victims, as was customary for all the members of the 
 confederation. Happily the gods remembered the 
 town, showing their displeasure by numerous prodigies, 
 and the sacrifice was recommenced.^ It certainly 
 deserved greater consideration on the part of the 
 Eomans, for it had remained faithful to them at 
 a serious crisis, when the Latin League took up 
 arms against them, and they were deserted even by 
 Lavinium.2 The war over, it had been decided that, in 
 recognition of this fidelity, the treaty between Rome 
 and Laurentum should be renewed year by year, on a 
 fixed day. AVe may well believe that in this country, 
 where nothing was lost, some vestige of the ancient 
 ceremony would still remain in the time of the 
 Emperor Claudius. At Pompeii an inscription of that 
 period has been found, in which a certain Turranius 
 a vain and pedantic personage, who seems to have been 
 very solicitous of religious dignities, tells us that he 
 has been appointed by the inhabitants of Laurentum 
 to renew the old alliance with the Iioman people.^ 
 
 1 Titus Livius, XXXVII. 3. 
 
 ^ The conduct of the people of Lavinium on this occasion is very racily 
 told by Titus Livius. After long wavering between the two parties, 
 they had at last sent forces to help the Latins, but scarcely had the 
 first troojjs passed the gate when they learnt that the Latins had been 
 beaten. The general, while getting his men in again as fast as possible, 
 could not help saying: "This is a little journey which will cost us 
 de&r" (Pro paulida via magnam mcrccdcm esse llomanis solvcndam). 
 And, in fact, the Romans sternly punished Lavinium for the intention 
 the town had had to harm them. — Titus Livius, VIII. 2. 
 
 'Prof. Mommsen has lately found another inscription of this same 
 Turranius at Patrica, the ancient Lavinium.
 
 LAURENTUM. 303 
 
 But these memories of a glorious past did not prevent 
 the town from becoming depopulated, and we have 
 seen that it was at last united to Lavinium, which 
 proves that it had then no longer much importance. 
 The precise moment of its final disappearance is 
 unknown. 
 
 Since the Eenaissance, the learned have at different 
 times turned their attention to it, and endeavoured to 
 discover where it could be. It has most often been 
 placed at two spots situated not far from each other, 
 namely, the farm of Tor Paterno and at Capo Cotta. 
 Let us take up the question in our turn, and go over 
 the country with a view to discovering which spot best 
 agrees with the descriptions of the ^neid. This 
 little journey in itself is not without its charm ; the 
 country is curious, not much known, and full of great 
 memories, and I think we need not regret having 
 ventured into it, whatever the success of our re- 
 searches. 
 
 Our best plan to avoid losing our way is strictly to 
 follow Virgil. He supposes that the first care of 
 ^neas, on landing on the banks of the Tiber, is to win 
 the friendship of the people of the country. For this 
 purpose he chooses a hundred of his companions, whom 
 he sends under the leadership of prudent Ilioneus to 
 greet King Latinus and ask his alliance. They leave for 
 Laurentum on foot, accomplish their embassy, and return 
 within the day. This proves that the town of Latinus 
 is not very far off; and we are set at rest, at starting, as 
 to the length of the journey we have before us. Here 
 we are, then, starting from Ostia, like the embassy of 
 -^neas, and following the shore. At about 4 kilo-
 
 304 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 metres distance our way is barred by a tolerably broad 
 canal, which carries the waters of the Starjno di Levante 
 into the sea. In ancient times, as now, this canal was 
 passed by means of a bridge, and near here an 
 inscription has been discovered, stating that certain 
 emperors (probably Diocletian and Maximian) have 
 repaired this bridge, which was falling into ruin, and that 
 they have done so in the interests of the inhabitants of 
 Ostia and of Laurentum (Fontem Laurentibus atque 
 Ostiensibus vetustate conlcqjsum restiticcrnnt). The 
 canal, then, formed the boundary between the territory 
 of the two towns, and we are certain, when we pass the 
 bridge, to set foot in the domains of Laurentum. 
 
 A little further on we discover another relic of the 
 old city, which proves that we are, indeed, on the road 
 that must take us to it. On leaving Castel Fusano, 
 we enter a large forest which to the left extends as far 
 as Decimo, and is called in modern maps Selva Lau- 
 rentina, the name it bore in antiquity. The forest 
 of Laurentum, with its dense thickets and quagmires 
 covered with reeds, was much frequented by Eoman 
 hunters. They found there plenty of very wild 
 boars, which showed good sport, Virgil, in order 
 to describe the energetic resistance of Mezentius, 
 surrounded by enemies who harass him, compares him 
 to a boar of Laurentum, whom the hounds have driven 
 into the toils. When he sees himself shut in them, he 
 quivers with rage and sticks out the bristles of his 
 flanks. None dare approach him. It is from far, and 
 sheltered from danger, that the hunters press him with 
 their darts and their cries. The fearless beast stands 
 at bay on every side, grinding his tusks and shaking
 
 LAURENTUM. 305 
 
 the darts fixed in his back.^ Horace tells iis, how- 
 ever, that " he wasn't worth the pains he cost and the 
 dangers he made his captors run." " As he lives in the 
 marshes and among the reeds, his flesh is flabby and 
 insipid ; he is far from equalling that of Umbria, which 
 feeds only on acorns."^ It must be remarked, how- 
 ever, that Horace does not here express his own opinion ; 
 the person he makes speak is a professor of gastronomy 
 whose niceties he desires to ridicule. As a rule, folk 
 were not so fastidious, and Martial, when he sends one 
 of his friends " a boar of Laurentum, weighing a good 
 weight," 2 thinks that he makes him a handsome present. 
 The excellent Pliny the Younger, though by nature 
 neither a warrior nor a sportsman, nevertheless yielded 
 to the fashion, and when at his country house near the 
 sea went like the rest to await the boar in the woods 
 — but his was a peculiar mode of hunting. " You are 
 going to laugh," he writes to his friend Tacitus, " and I 
 allow you to do so willingly. I, that hero whom you 
 know, have taken three boars, and the fattest in the 
 forest. ' Eh, what ! Pliny ? ' you will say. Yes ; Pliny 
 himself. But I managed everything so as not to break 
 with my ordinary tastes and my love of repose. I sat 
 quietly near the nets, and had at hand not a pike or a 
 spear, but the wherewithal to write. I reflected and 
 took notes ; for I wanted to be sure, in case I might 
 return empty-handed, at least to bring away full tablets. 
 Don't despise this way of working. It is wondrous to 
 see how bodily movement enlivens and stimulates the 
 mind. The forests that surround us — the solitude, the 
 
 ^^n.,X.707. ^ Sat., 11. i, i2. 3 Martial, IX. 49, 5. 
 
 U
 
 306 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 silence, makes thoughts dawn within us. I advise you, 
 then, when you go hunting, to take writing tablets with 
 your stores, and you will find, from experience, that not 
 only Diana walks the woods, but that Minerva, too, 
 is sometimes met there." ^ Things have not much 
 changed in the Selva Laurentina since Virgil and 
 Pliny's time. Boars still abound there, and the king of 
 Italy has no more favourite relaxation than to leave 
 his austere Eoman residence and go and hunt there 
 from time to time. 
 
 Along the shore, between the forest and the sea, there 
 stretches a sandy plain, fringed by a chain of dunes, 
 called by the people of the coimtry " Tumoletti." It is 
 quite uninhabited, and from Castel Fusano to Tor 
 Paterno, for more than 9 kilometres, one finds not a 
 house, and rarely meets a human being. Yet formerly 
 this was one of the most populous and most agreeable 
 places in the world ; nowhere, perhaps, were so many 
 rich country houses found so close together. Pliny 
 tells us : " They followed each other, sometimes 
 separate, often contiguous, and seemed to form so 
 many little towns." ^ Does this mean that the nature 
 of the soil and the conditions of the climate have 
 changed, and that in former times one was not ex- 
 posed there to the terrible fever scourge ? We are 
 bound to think so, since this country, once so densely 
 peopled, has become a desert. But the change has 
 not been so great as is usually asserted, and we 
 may suspect that, even then, one could not live there 
 quite free from peril. Pliny says in so many words: 
 
 1 EpisL, I. 6. '^Ibid., II. 17, 27.
 
 LAUKENTUM. 307 
 
 " The coast of Etruria in all its length is dangerous and 
 pestilential ; " ^ and we know from Strabo that the soil 
 of Terracina, Setia, and Ardea, and all this coast in 
 general, was marshy and insalubrious. Yet the evil 
 was clearly much less grave than it is now, for Strabo 
 immediately adds : " But it is nevertheless pleasant to 
 live there, and the ground is not seen to be worse 
 cultivated." ^ It was doubtless this cultivation that 
 rendered the soil more wholesome, and, without quite 
 subduing the malaria, made it less offensive. Probably 
 there, as at Eome, " the first fig brought a few fevers, 
 and opened a few successions " ; ^ but little heed was 
 paid to this, and we shall see that the doctors them- 
 selves ended by recommending their patients to live at 
 Laurentum. The Eomans had managed to make it a 
 place of rest and pleasure. For them it had the 
 advantage of being far enough from Eome to enable 
 them to escape the importunate, and yet sufficiently 
 near to enable them to get there in a few hours. " I 
 need only start," says Pliny, " when I have finished my 
 business, and my day is ended." * So this neighbour- 
 hood had early begun to be fashionable. Scipio 
 already used to come here with liis friends and taste 
 that pleasure, so fraught with charm, of making one- 
 self young for a moment, when one feels oneself on the 
 ■eve of ageing altogether. Tradition loved to show 
 Lselius and him playing like children with shells on 
 the sea-beach.^ The orator Hortensius also joossessed 
 a celebrated villa at Laurentum, of which Varro speaks 
 
 1 EpisL, V. 6, 2. ' strabo, V. 3, 12. ^ Horace, EpisL, I. 7, 5. 
 
 4 Epist., II. 17, 2. ^ Valerius Maximus, VIII. 1.
 
 308 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 with admiration. It comprised a wood of more than 
 50 jugera (12 hectares, or nearly 30 acres), in which 
 there were a great number of animals that had been 
 accustomed to come together at the sound of a trumpet. 
 This enabled the proprietor to offer his guests, while 
 dining, a very curious entertainment. The repast was 
 served on a hill ; an artist, clad as Orpheus, with a 
 long robe and a cithern, was introduced ; and on a 
 signal, to complete the illusion, the artist sounded a 
 trumpet, when stags, boars, and all the beasts of the 
 forest were seen running up. Varro says : " It was 
 a spectacle as fine as that one in the Great Circus 
 during the games given by the iEdiles, or the hunts 
 that are made with the beasts of Africa." ^ But of all 
 these country houses, where the great lords of Eome 
 passed a good half of their lives, none is so well known 
 to us as that of Pliny. Under pretext of inducing his 
 friend Gallus to come and see it, he gives him, in a 
 celebrated letter, a detailed description of it which 
 places it quite before our eyes. The perusal of this 
 letter is of the greatest interest to all who would 
 have some idea of the magnificent Eoman villas. It 
 shows us to what degree everything was arranged in 
 them for the comfort of life. To our taste, nothing 
 is wanting but a park and grounds. Such a fine 
 house would have needed a better surrounding. But 
 perhaps the very reason Pliny prefers it to all his 
 other villas is because he is not harassed there with the 
 cares of property — is freer, more at his ease, and, being 
 
 1 Dc re rust., III. 13.
 
 LAUEENTUM. 309 
 
 distracted by nothing, can work better than elsewhere. 
 " Here," he says, " I hear no one speak evil of others and 
 myself speak evil of none, if not of myself when ill 
 content with what I have done. Here I escape from 
 fear and hope, and laugh at all that may be said ; I 
 only hold converse with myself and my books. sweet 
 and good life ! Pleasant repose, worth more than what 
 is honoured with the names of work and business ! 
 sea, shores, my true study-rooms ! Wliat a source 
 of inspiration you are to me ! " ^ We know, as surely 
 as possible, where Pliny's villa must have been. He 
 has taken the trouble to indicate its site with such 
 exactness that there is no possibility of mistake. He 
 tells us it is on the sea-shore, 17 millia (a little more than 
 15 J English miles) from Piome ; that one can get there 
 by the Via Ostiensis and the Via Laurentina ; but that 
 one must leave the former at the eleventh, and the 
 latter at the fourteenth mile. With a compass, then, 
 on a well-made map, we can mark the place exactly. 
 It is at a little distance from Castel Pusano, towards 
 the spot called " La Palombara," where it is usually 
 located. As for thinking that some ruins of it may be 
 found by excavating the soil here, this is an illusion 
 and a chimera. The dwellings of private persons are 
 not made to last for ages. That of Pliny, from Trojan 
 to Theodosius, must have often changed owners, and as 
 each of its new owners doubtless desired to accommodate 
 it to his taste and his fortune, it is probable that, even if 
 it still existed at the end of the Empire, it was no longer 
 the same house. Nibby was right, then, in saying that 
 
 1 Pliny, EpisL, I. 9.
 
 310 tup: country of Horace and virgil. 
 
 nothing now remains of it but the pleasant description 
 left us by Pliny. 
 
 III. 
 
 TOR PATERNO — CHARACTER OF THE RUINS FOUND THERE — 
 THE VILLA OF COMMODUS — MARCH OF iENEAS ON 
 LAURENTUM: — AMBUSH OF TURNUS — PROBABLE SITUA- 
 TION OF LAURENTUM. 
 
 After traversing this desert for several kilometres, 
 we at length descry before us a vast habitation, with 
 strange and massive forms. It is Torre di Paterno, or, 
 in common parlance, Tor Paterno, a very large farm 
 belonging to the King of Italy. It is situated not far 
 from the sea, to which we are brought by an avenue of 
 trees, ending in a little pavilion built in the midst of 
 the sands of the shore. 
 
 "N-N^iat gives this its importance in our eyes is that 
 nearly all the learned consider it built on the site of 
 Laurentum. The illustrious antiquarian Fabretti was, 
 I believe, the first to pronounce this opinion.^ In 
 connection with an inscription he had found in this 
 vicinity, and was studying, he related that he had seen 
 considerable ruins at Tor Paterno, and did not doubt 
 but that they were the last remains of the town of 
 Latinus. He added that, being eighty years of age, 
 he much feared that he had neither the strength nor the 
 time to prove this. In fact, he has nowhere done so ; 
 
 ^ Fabretti, Inscr., p. 752.
 
 LAURENTUM. 311 
 
 but he has been believed upon his word, and his 
 opinion has gained ground. 
 
 On reaching Tor Paterno, a fine modern inscription 
 first meets our eyes, informing us that we are indeed at 
 Laurentum, the very place which v/as the cradle of Eome. 
 
 LAVRENTVM 
 ROMANS VRBIS INCVNABVLA. 
 
 The inscription then records that, on 14th October 
 1845, Pope Gregory XVL, an ardent lover of antiquity, 
 visited this spot, and that the very fields trembled with 
 joy at the honour done them by the Sovereign Pontiff. 
 This noble visit seemed officially to consecrate the right 
 of Tor Paterno to identify itself with Laurentum. 
 
 At Tor Paterno, and in its vicinity, considerable 
 ruins have certainly been found ; and one is at first 
 inclined to think that a spot where antiquity has left 
 so many relics must have held a certain place in 
 history. This is the basis of Fabretti's opinion, and 
 what gave it so much credit down to our days. But 
 is it possible for a moment to admit that these are the 
 ruins of a town ? This is the whole question, and it 
 seems to me that a rapid examiuation will suffice for 
 its solution. 
 
 They are chiefly accumulated about the farm. The 
 modern house has lodged itself in their midst anyhow, 
 leaning its little rough-cast and whitened shell, against 
 huge walls of red brick, that domii-iate it on every side. 
 In order to understand the extent and grandeur of the 
 ancient monument, we must go over the habitation. 
 For the present edifice, it has only been possible to
 
 312 THE COUNTRY OF IIOHAGK AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Utilise a part of them. Beliiiid, iu a sort of enclosure 
 contiguous to the farm, rise great fragments of wall, 
 higher and more massive than those of the facade, and 
 sometimes supported by buttresses. Long study is not 
 needed in order to recognise the kind of edifice to 
 which these remains belonged. It is impossible to see 
 them without thinking of the great buildings on the 
 Palatine, and, above all, of the villa built by Hadrian 
 at Tivoli. Although in a worse condition alid of more 
 modest dimensions, they are of the same family and 
 nearly of the same period. AVe have before us a palace 
 of the Imperial epoch ; and it is easy to recognise 
 the great halls with their arched doorways and the 
 vaults which decorated their interiors. Outside the 
 farm, in the fields extending towards the right, ruins 
 are met with everywhere. These are usually masses 
 of cement and brick from some fallen wall or vault, 
 with, from time to time, fragments of walls in better 
 preservation, and even halls of which we can distinguish 
 the ground-plan. At every turn there are pieces of 
 marble or stucco ; capitals and shafts of columns, and I 
 even found a headless bust, whose drapery was carefully 
 done, and which appeared to belong to the time of 
 the Antonines. On the other side, we can trace the 
 remains of a large aqueduct reaching out into the 
 country. Pliny remarks that this neighbourhood has 
 the disadvantage of possessing no springs. In his 
 time people were content to dig wells there, which, 
 although very near the sea, yielded limpid and pure 
 water.^ It is therefore probable that the aqueduct 
 
 1 EpisL, II. 17, 25.
 
 LAUEENTUM. 313 
 
 which brought water at great expense from the 
 mountains was only built after Trajan's time. 
 
 Our walk ended, it is easy for us to solve the 
 problem we set ourselv^es just now. Surely these are 
 not the ruins of a town that we have just visited. 
 A town, especially when ancient, like Laurentum, 
 contains monuments of various epochs, and, further- 
 more, the dwellings of both rich and poor are found 
 there. Here everything seems to be of the same age ; 
 brick constructions of the Antonine period predominat- 
 ing almost throughout, and, mutilated though they be, 
 retaining an air of power and grandeur which forbids 
 us to think they were the hovels of poor people. We 
 have then, before us, the dwelling of a rich man — 
 probably the palace of a prince. Let us push our 
 conjectures further, and seek to ascertain what emperor 
 could have had his residence here. It is not a difficult 
 task. In 189, Eome was ravaged by a plague which 
 filled its inhabitants with the most terrible dismay. 
 " One met nothing," says Herodian, " but people filling 
 their nostrils and ears with the most powerful scents 
 or unceasingly burning perfumes." The doctors pre- 
 tended that these odours, by occupying the passages, 
 prevented the bad air from entering, neutralised its 
 powers by their own, and stopped its effect.^ These 
 remedies were of course useless, and, as they did not 
 prevent people from dying, the Emperor Commodus, 
 as cowardly as he was cruel, sought a more efficacious 
 means of escape from the scourge — he left Eome. His 
 physicians, among whom was perhaps Galen, coun- 
 
 i Herodian, I. 12.
 
 314 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 selle'I him to take refufie at Laurentum. The reason 
 they had for recommending this town was that it was 
 built in a very bracing country, and was surrounded by 
 laurel woods which had given it the name it bore. 
 They doubtless attributed to the laurel some of those 
 qualities we assign to the eucalyptus. It was certainly 
 not in the town of Laurentum itself that the Emperor 
 came to ask an asylum. He probably possessed some 
 country house in the neighbourhood, which he had 
 built or embellished, and went there to pass all the 
 time that the malady lasted. Nothing then prevents 
 us from supposing that the great walls of Tor Paterno 
 are what remains to us of the villa of Commodus.'^ 
 
 But the problem is not yet quite solved. Supposing, 
 as seems to me certain, that the ruins we have just 
 visited are those of a palace and not of a town, it may 
 be admitted that the town was near the palace, and 
 Laurentum may still he placed, if not at Tor Paterno 
 itself, at least in the vicinity. Bonstetten quite refuses 
 to believe this, and it seems to him that the place 
 in no wise fits in with Virgil's narrative. Tor 
 Paterno, he says, is only 500 metres from the shore : 
 Laurentum must have been much further. In none of 
 the battles that took place round the town of Latinus 
 is the sea mentioned, whereas Virgil constantly spoke 
 of it while they were fighting before the Trojan camp. 
 
 ^ Gell, in his Topography of Home, calls attention to certain 
 analogies of construction between the ruins of Tor Paterno and those 
 found on the Appian Way, and to which the name of Roma Vecchia is 
 given. These latter belong to a villa belonging to Commodus, and 
 which he had repaired. The architecture of the two edifices seems 
 to him to be of the same time.
 
 LAURENTUxM. 315 
 
 This reasoning quite convinced Nibby, and is what 
 decided him to withdraw Laurentum inland, as far as 
 the Casali di Capocotta, where he had discovered some 
 ancient remains. Let us take up the question again in 
 our turn, and see whether they have both well inter- 
 preted what Virgil tells us. 
 
 First of all, is it true that he makes no allusion 
 to the neighbourhood of the sea, in the two last 
 Books of the j^neid ? Bonstetten says so, and Nibby 
 repeats it after him, but I think they both go too far. 
 King Latinus, in the sacrifice preceding the combat of 
 Turnus and ^neas, begins by calling the earth, sea, 
 and sky to witness that he will be true to his promises : 
 Caelum, mare, sidera juro} Well, we know that the 
 Eomans were very precise and circumstantial people, 
 who liked, above all things, to be perfectly well under- 
 stood by those with whom they had to do. So in 
 addressing the gods, they were in the habit of touching 
 or showing the things whose names they pronounced, 
 in order that no confusion might be possible. I there- 
 fore think the sea must have been pretty close to the 
 spot from which Latinus spoke — that it could at least be 
 seen — and that his hand stretched towards it at the 
 moment when he invoked it in witness of his sincerity 
 must have added precision and solemnity to his oath. 
 A little further on, when the combat has begun, he 
 alludes to a wild olive, dedicated to Faunus, rising in 
 the midst of the plain. " It was a tree venerated 
 by sailors. When they were saved from the wreck, 
 they came to bring it their offerings, and hung their 
 
 '^yEn., XII. 196.
 
 316 THE COUNTIiY OF HORACE AND YIKGIL. 
 
 clothes upon its branches." ^ I own my inability to 
 suppose that " the tree venerated by sailors " grew 
 inland. Catullus tells us that in their dangers they 
 are accustomed to address " the gods of the shore ; " ^ so 
 it must have been to some tree near the shore that 
 they came to hang their soaking garments when 
 delivered from peril and safe on dry land. It is 
 natural that they should be in haste to return thanks 
 to the gods for their protection, and that they should 
 do so in the very face of the floods by which they had 
 nearly perished. Thus we see that in ancient pictures 
 representing the sea-shore, the artists love to paint 
 little chapels decked by the gratitude of sailors with 
 garlands and festoons. 
 
 These are a few reasons for thinking that Laurentum 
 could not be far from the sea, but it is true there are 
 others which might prevent us from thinking it could 
 have been very close. The Eleventh Book of the 
 JEneid contains an account of a military incident 
 deserving close study. I said just now that Virgil's 
 battles quite resemble Homer's ; but we must make a 
 reservation. War in the ^neid appears less primitive, 
 more intricate, and more learned than in the Iliad. 
 In Homer, each fights for himself and follows no in- 
 spiration but his courage, whereas, among the soldiers 
 of ^neas and Turnus, there is more discipline and 
 concert. The meUe still remains sufficiently confused ; 
 but, with the exception of these furious encounters, 
 where every one presses forward and has no other fixed 
 idea than to go as far and hit as hard as he can, one 
 
 i.i";;., 766. ^ Catullus, 4, 22.
 
 LAURENTUM. 317 
 
 feels a little more art and tactics in their manner of 
 fighting. Turnus, for example, conducts the siege 
 of the Trojan camp with a certain skill. Messapus, 
 whom he chooses to blockade the enemy, commands 
 fourteen Rutuli chiefs, and each of them has a hundred 
 soldiers under him. Guard is mounted, too, or relieved, 
 and bivouac fires are lighted. Preparatory to giving 
 the assault, the wall is beaten with a ram, and then the 
 troops advance tortoise fashion — that is to say, raising 
 their shields above their heads to protect themselves 
 from the enemy's missiles. These are devices of which 
 Homer's heroes never thought. But more remarkable 
 than all the rest is the way in which ^neas sets to 
 work to take Laurentum. The Latins, beaten on the 
 banks of the Tiber, have just fled, and have sought 
 refuge in the town of Latinus, which is about to 
 become the centre of the final combats, -^neas decides 
 to follow them. May I be permitted to say that, 
 in order to insure success, he imagines a "turning 
 movement " ? The term is very modern ; but there is 
 no other so exactly expressing the process he is going 
 to put in practice. Placed as he is at Ostia, and 
 having before him the great pond called Stagno di 
 Levante, he can get into the country facing him by both 
 banks of it. He divides his army into two bodies, 
 causing them to take two different ways. The horse- 
 men under Tarchon advance along the sea-shore. The 
 foot and the bulk of the army turn in the other 
 direction ; but, instead of following the edge of the pond, 
 and not leaving the plain, they rise to the left and 
 plunge among the hills. The poet does not tell us the 
 reason that induces ^neas to undertake this delicate
 
 318 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 operation. Does he fear that the sandy roads of the 
 plain will prove inconvenient for people heavily armed ? 
 It may be thought so, but it is more probable that he 
 hoped by debouching upon Laurentum by a road that 
 was not the shortest and most natural, to be less 
 expected, and have more chance of surprising the 
 enemy. In that case he is mistaken, for Turnus, who 
 possesses scouts, has discovered his designs, and is 
 preparing to frustrate them. " There is," says Virgil, 
 " in the recesses of the mountain, a deep valley, fit for 
 surprises and the ruses of war, and surrounded on all 
 sides by heights covered with thick M^oods. One gets 
 there by a narrow path and by a close gorge, difficult 
 of access. Above, towards the highest summit, is 
 hid a plateau, which they do not know of ; a safe and 
 convenient post, whether it be wished to rush upon the 
 enemy, or whether it be preferred to remain upon the 
 height and roll down huge rocks. It is thither the 
 Itutuli chief proceeds by unknown roads. He seizes 
 the position, and first finds himself in the perfidious 
 forest." 1 But all his projects are crossed by unfore- 
 seen events. "While he is awaiting his enemy, and hop- 
 ing to crush him in his passage, they come in hot haste to 
 tell him that Tarchon's horsemen have beaten his, and 
 that, meeting no serious resistance, they are approach- 
 ing Laurentum, in order to take it. He must, of 
 course, hasten as fast as possible to defend his allies. 
 " He leaves the liill M'hich he occupied, and quits the 
 impenetrable woods." - Scarcely is he lost from view 
 and entering the plain, when ^neas, penetrating the 
 
 ^^En., XI. 522. '^ Jhid., 896.
 
 LAUEENTUM. 319 
 
 defile, henceforth free, crosses the heights and issues 
 from the thick forest. Thus both march rapidly 
 towards the town, and are only separated by a short 
 interval. 
 
 It seems to me that, from this incident, the site of 
 Laurentum may be deduced with some probability. 
 The town was situated in the plain, but close to 
 the mountain ; close enough to the shore for the sea 
 to be visible, yet so near the hills that one came upon it 
 on issuing from the forests and the heights. Neither Tor 
 Paterno nor Capocotta seem to me quite to fulfil these 
 conditions. The first of these two places is too near 
 the sea and too far from the hills. If it is where 
 Laurentum stood, we no longer understand the man- 
 oeuvre of ^neas, and to go round the mountain in 
 order to reach it is a ridiculously circuitous proceed- 
 ing. The other, being in the mountain itself, and 
 situated a little above Pratica, is somewhat too far from 
 the shore. Strabo, relating that ^neas left Laurentum 
 for Lavinium, says that he plunged into the country. 
 If we place Laurentum at Capocotta, the expression is 
 no longer accurate, since, on the contrary, from Capo- 
 cotta to Lavinium one descends for several miles. 
 Thus Capocotta no more satisfies those who would 
 find the ancient town of Lavinium than does Tor 
 Paterno.^ 
 
 But where could it have been, then ? Of course 
 there is no question here of exactly designating its site 
 and pointing out its ruins. It is very probable that. 
 
 ^ The luap in Cell's Topography of Rome gives Capocotta ijuile an 
 inexact position.
 
 320 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 in the words of tlie poet, " even those ruins have 
 perished " ; and, in any case, if they still lie hid under 
 some lieap of rubbish, a passing traveller cannot flatter 
 himself that he will discover them ; but he may get 
 relatively near them. Let us try to do so, and, at the 
 risk of tiring the reader, start again, for the purpose of 
 approximatively settling the situation of the town. Just 
 now, it will be remembered, we left Ostia and skirted 
 the coast. Let us this time take a new road. Virgil's 
 account, which we have just read, proves that we shall 
 not do wrong to ascend a little towards the heights. 
 In going from Eome to Tor Paterno, we pass through 
 three regions that have not the same character. First 
 there is the vast undulating plain called the Campagna, 
 by which Eome is surrounded on all sides ; then a 
 series of hills covered with woods ; and, lastly, the plain 
 beginning again and extending uninterruptedly to the 
 sea. The intermediate zone is the one that most strikes 
 the traveller. It begins at Decimo, a kind of fortified 
 farm, recalling the days when in this land one could 
 only sleep behind strong walls. There the ground 
 rises, the aspect of the country changes, and one enters 
 what remains of the wood of Laurentum. I went 
 through it in the month of May, when all the bushes 
 were in flower ; and what in my eyes made this journey 
 most charming, was that at every step the incidents of 
 the way awakened in me some memory of the JEncid. 
 Passing beneath the shadow of the great trees, I 
 recollected that hither the Trojans and the Latins had 
 come after the battle to cut wood for the funeral 
 pyres. " In virtue of the truce," says the poet, " they 
 start for the forest and walk about the mountains
 
 LAUEENTUM. 321 
 
 together. The ash resounds under the blows of the 
 axe ; they fell the pines, whose head touched the sky ; 
 the wedges cease not to rend the oak and the sweet- 
 smelling juniper ; and the waggons groan beneath the 
 weight of the young elms." ^ As in the time of Virgil, 
 the road is still bordered by ashes, elms, oaks, and 
 pines. The savage-looking woodcutters and charcoal- 
 burners, whom I from time to time saw issue from 
 some dark alley, reminded me that ^ueas already met 
 robust peasants there, armed with knotty sticks, and I 
 felt as if, at some turn of the road, I was about to see 
 the terrible Tyrrhus, " emitting cries of fury, and bran- 
 dishing his hatchet against those who passed." ^ As 
 we get deeper into the wood, the road becomes more 
 varied, rising and falling continually, and hills succeed- 
 ing hills, cut sharply by somewhat deep valleys. It is 
 the only spot where the ambuscade of Turnus can be 
 placed with some probability. ^Eneas doubtless got 
 there by following the bottom of the valley, and upon 
 one of these summits covered with trees his enemy 
 silently awaited him. The landscape, I own, is less 
 gloomy and terrible than Virgil represents it, but in 
 poets one must overlook a few exaggerations. It is 
 natural, too, that on quitting the monotonous plains of 
 the Campagna the least hills should appear mountains 
 and the smallest valleys assume the proportions of 
 veritable precipices. Here we are then, about to leave 
 what Virgil calls " the deep forests." At this moment 
 we come upon Castel Porziano, a handsome chateau, 
 formerly belonging to a noble Eoman family, which the 
 
 1 ^n., XI. 134, ' Ibid., VII. 509.
 
 322 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 King of Italy has repaired and much embellished, and 
 turned into a hunting-box. This chateau, in its present 
 state, resembles a little village. Besides the King's 
 house, which is of modest appearance, it contains 
 dwellings for the servants, barracks for the soldiers, 
 an osteria, and a sali e tdbacci store. It is so placed 
 as to offer good views from all sides. A few minutes 
 ere getting there, while following the avenue of pines, 
 we have before us, on turning round, the mass of the 
 Alban Hills, and in the immense plain, bounded by 
 Soracte and the Sabine mountains, Eome, with a mul- 
 titude of towns and villages bearing glorious names. 
 Directly on leaving it we catch sight of the sea, 
 including a vast extent of coast. While I stop to 
 enjoy this sight a memory of Virgil occurs to my mind. 
 It is doubtless along these last heights that Queen 
 Amata must have taken refuge when, in order to 
 withdraw her daughter from ^neas, she called the 
 women of Laurentum to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus 
 with her. From below, their savage cries must have 
 been heard, and they must have been seen passing 
 through the trees with bare shoulders and floating hair, 
 waving their thyrses crowned with vine, or furiously 
 shaking their blazing torches. From Castel Porziano 
 the descent becomes rapid, and the plain is soon reached. 
 It is at the place of egress, at the foot of the hills, 
 two or three kilometres from the sea, a little lower 
 than Capocotta, a little higher than Tor Paterno, and 
 about half-way between Ostia and Pratica, that I should 
 be inclined to locate Laurentum. The place quite 
 agrees with the descriptions of the yEncid, and Virgil 
 seems to take us by the hand and lead us thither.
 
 LAURENTUM. 323 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE PALACE OF LATINUS — HOW VIRGIL COMPOSES HIS 
 DESCRIPTIONS — WHY HE DOES NOT EXACTLY RE- 
 PRODUCE THOSE OF HOMER — MIXTURE OF DIFFERENT 
 EPOCHS — UNITY OF THE WHOLE. 
 
 It is not the only service he renders us, for, after point- 
 ing out the site of the town, he helps our imagination to 
 reconstruct it. He depicts it, not as it was in his time, 
 half deserted and ruined, but as he supposes it must 
 have been in the days of good King Latinus. 
 
 It will be remembered that scarcely had ^neas 
 landed in Italy when he sent deputies to solicit the 
 friendship of the Latins, and whom we followed some 
 time in the beginning of their journey. After marching 
 along the sea, they turn to the left, and arrive at Lauren- 
 turn. Here Virgil describes the sight depicted before 
 them. In a large plain, before the ramparts, all the 
 youth are assembled. " The lads, and those in the 
 prime of life, are engaged in breaking a horse, and 
 guiding a chariot through the dust. Others are striving 
 to bend a resisting bow, launch with nervous arms 
 flexible javelins, or contend together in speed or 
 strength." ^ The town is situated near a large marsh 
 and defended by strong walls. Upon a height rises the 
 King's palace. This edifice, majestic and immense, is 
 supported by a hundred columns, and surrounded by a 
 gloomy wood, which has from all times inspired the 
 
 i^/i., VII. 160.
 
 324 THE COUNTUY OF IIOUACE AND YIKGIL. 
 
 Latins with a religious awe. It is a temple as well as 
 a palace. Assemblies of the Senate are held there, and 
 on festivals the chiefs of the natiun come tliither to sit 
 down to solemn- repasts. It is there the kings receive the 
 sceptre on their accession, and the fasces are borne before 
 them for the first time. In the vestibule rich statues 
 of cedar-wood represent the king's ancestors. Each is 
 in its place : Italus ; the venerable Sabinus, who planted 
 the vine, still holding his bent sickle ; and Saturnus ; 
 Janus with the double face ; and all the kings since 
 the beginning of the nation, and the warriors who 
 received glorious wounds fighting for the fatherland. 
 There are also seen, hanging from the roofs of the 
 sacred porticoes, the arms and chariots of the vanquished, 
 axes, casques, the gates of conquered towns, shields, and 
 beaks taken from ships. Picus himself — King Picus, 
 tamer of horses — is seated, covered with the trabant, 
 bearing in his hand the augur's wand, and in the other 
 the slanting shield of the Salian priests. " ^ 
 
 This is the idea which Virgil gives us of the palace of 
 Latinus. Could it have been quite thus, and is the 
 poet's description of a nature entirely to satisfy a rigor- 
 ous historian and antiquary ? In order to ascertain 
 this, let us consult the curious book just published by 
 Dr Helbig, in which he seeks to elucidate Homer's epic 
 by means of monuments.^ We have, in fact, to-day, 
 two means of going back to those remote times. The 
 lirst consists of the faithful picture drawn of them in the 
 
 ^yEn., VII. 170. 
 
 - The exact title of Dr Helbig's book is : Das Ilumcrischc Epos aiis 
 den Denkvidlfirn erlduleri.
 
 LAURENTUM. 325 
 
 Homeric poems. Antiquity lives in them, and in order 
 to live in it, we might be content to read them ; but the 
 excavations undertaken in late years in Greece and 
 Italy furnish an additional source of information not to 
 be despised. After exhausting the first layers of the 
 soil, the explorers of our day decided to go lower. The 
 depths they penetrated to will probably never yield us 
 many masterpieces ; but they preserve the memory of 
 very ancient epochs, and from time to time they give 
 us a few remains of them. These are arms of stone, of 
 bronze, or of iron, pottery with rough designs, and, some- 
 times, in tombs rather more modern, jewellery, metal 
 coffers, rough paintings representing battles or feasts — 
 those two pleasures of young nations. Dr Helbig 
 thinks that these remains, nearly contemporary with 
 Homer, may serve as a commentary and an illustration 
 to his verses. They bring into relief what is often 
 masked by the charm of his poetry, namely, that he 
 lived in the midst of a barbarous society. From the 
 very first this society had in Greece attained perfection 
 in poetry, but the other arts did not proceed so quickly. 
 In reading the Iliad or the Odyssey, we are tempted to 
 think that but little way remained for it to make ; but 
 on seeing the arms and utensils it used, we soon recog- 
 nise that it was still making its first steps. 
 
 Virgil, in composing the yEneid, found himself in a 
 difficulty unknown to Homer. He could not, like his 
 predecessor, give the heroes of his poem the manners of 
 the people of his time. Had the Trojans of Jj^neas and 
 the Latins of Turnus quite resembled the people of the 
 court of Augustus, he would have been laughed at. He 
 was therefore obliged to age them, and, as far as possible.
 
 326 THE COUNTUY OF HORACE AND YIIIGIL. 
 
 carry tliem back to their epoch. He could, it is true, 
 lighten this work by being content to copy Homer, and 
 this he has often done ; but he has also not unfrequently 
 departed from his model. It is patent, for example, 
 that the palace of Latinus, of which we have just read 
 the description, is more majestic and more sumptuous 
 than the dwellings of the kings of the Iliad or of the 
 Odyssey. Homer, speaking of the house of Ulysses, 
 tells us that it is the finest in Ithaca, and that it first 
 attracts all eyes, because it possesses a court surrounded 
 by walls with folding gates, which shut well ! This is 
 the magnificence that distinguished it from others ! In 
 the royal houses there is no question of statues filling 
 the vestibule, and of columns supporting the roof, as in 
 that of Latinus. It is much if the faqade is ornamented 
 with great polished and shining stones, on which the 
 king comes to sit and administer justice to his people. 
 Manners, we see, are very simple, and we are at the 
 b3ginning of a civilization. What proves it still better 
 are certain details drawn by Dr Helbig from the 
 Homeric poems, and which depict the time. In those 
 great apartments, where the suitors of Penelope and the 
 fiower of the Achasan nobility feast all day, the remains 
 of the repast bestrew the floor, and sheep or ox bones 
 lie about, which the revellers sometimes fling at each 
 other's heads. The hall where they eat is the same in 
 which the feast was prepared, and it is nnich that a 
 small hole has been left in the roof to let out the smoke. 
 The smell of broiled meat, however, does not seem to 
 have been thought unpleasant in those days. On the 
 contrary, for the people of the period, a good house was 
 one where the grease was smelt (Kiwrtriyei' Soj/^ia), and one's
 
 LAURENTUM. 327 
 
 opulence was even gauged by the intensity of this snielL 
 Let us add that before the palace of Ulysses a heap of 
 dung was spread, which served the poor dog Argus as a 
 bed, and that some is also found in the court of Priam's 
 house. " Here is quite enough," says Dr Helbig, " to 
 prove that the atmosphere then breathed in royal 
 dwellings would have singularly irritated the nerves of 
 our exquisites." 
 
 To-day, when we like crude colours and expressive 
 details, these are, perhaps, the traits which an author 
 would choose in preference, in order to give an idea of 
 life in ancient times. If Virgil has neglected them, the 
 timidity of his taste is not solely to blame, since he has 
 occasionally risked bold delineations which to some 
 fastidious critics have seemed gross. It has been com- 
 plained that in describing battles he is seen to insist 
 with too much complacency upon the brains that gush 
 out, or the blood and pus which flow from the wounds ; 
 and when he describes to us the gulpings of an old 
 pilot who has fallen into the sea and vomits salt water, 
 Heyne gets angry with him, and reproaches his testa- 
 mentary executors, Varius and Tucca, with not having 
 had the courage to suppress these unpleasant lines. 
 Nor must it be thought that if Virgil usually gives his 
 lines a more modern air, it was because he had no 
 understanding and love for antiquity. No one among 
 his contemporaries loved it more or understood it better. 
 Not only did he not shrink from exactly reproducing 
 the manners of Homeric times — he has even, now and 
 then, gone further back. Vestiges are found in him of 
 a more distant past than the age of the Iliad. When 
 yEneas goes to visit King Evander in his little townlet
 
 328 TIIR COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 on the Palatine, he is shown, on the sides of the 
 Janiculum and the Palatine hill, masses of fallen wall 
 covering the soil. These are the remains of the towns 
 of Janus and Saturn. So there were ruins, already, 
 in the time of the Trojan War. In these towns which 
 have been destroyed, there lived a generation of men 
 now vanished, and of whom Virgil tells us. He speaks 
 of this primitive race, " born of oak trunks, and as hard, 
 who had neither customs nor laws." He tells us that 
 they knew neither how to harness oxen, to cultivate the 
 fields, nor how to gather the wealth of the earth ; that 
 they thought not of the morrow, but lived from day to 
 day, shaking the trees to gather their fruits, or pursuing 
 the beasts in the forests.^ Of these first inhabitants of 
 Italy we have now recovered the trace. The depths of 
 the soil, the waters of the lakes, have given us back their 
 arms of stone or bronze, their utensils of clay or wood, 
 and even the remains of their food ; but we may say 
 that Virgil, who knew them not, divined, and was in- 
 tuitively conscious of them. We see, in M. Breal's 
 study on the legend of Cacus, how, under his hand, this 
 fable has reassumed its antique air. He has restored 
 to it its first aspect, and made it live again, " like those 
 springs which for a moment give back to dried flowers 
 their brilliancy and brightness — he has rejuvenated it, 
 yet not for a moment, but for all ages." It is above all 
 in the short invocation of the Salian priests, by which 
 the narrative ends, that he seems to have found again 
 the tone of the poetry of the first ages. M. Brcjal shows 
 that nothing can give a more exact idea of the poetry 
 
 ^.En., VIII. 314.
 
 LAURENTUM. 329 
 
 of the Vedas than this short passage, and that there is 
 not a line in it that cannot be connected with certain 
 verses drawn from them. " Is it not interesting," he 
 adds, "to find in the masterpiece of learned poetry, 
 a fragment that would hold its place among the creations 
 of the most spontaneous poetry that has ever existed ? 
 It is the privilege of genius. It can re-awaken echoes 
 that have slumbered for centviries." ^ 
 
 It is certain, then, that Virgil could at times go 
 back to the most remote antiquity, but the end he had 
 in view in his work did not allow him to remain there 
 long. Let us remember that he did not write solely for 
 the pleasure of the curious. He had other pretensions 
 than to satisfy a few pedants who would have liked 
 to hold him strictly to Homer. He addressed all, and 
 desired to find readers for whom his poem was a living 
 work, as low down as letters could descend. Instead, 
 then, of losing himself in the distance of the ages, 
 whither few persons would have followed him, and con- 
 structing at great pains an arch;pological creation that 
 would have only interested a few scholars, he strove to 
 put before the eyes of his contemporaries a world in 
 which they should feel at home. In carefully studying 
 his last books, where the action takes place on Italic 
 soil, it will be seen that he almost everywhere intro- 
 duces the usages of his country and of his period.^ 
 Those who read the JEneid were charmed to come 
 
 ^ Breal, Melanges de Mythologie, ]». 145, et scq. 
 
 -Thus, to cite but a single example, the Latins, before beginning 
 the war with .^neas, solemnly open the Temple of Janus (VII. COl), 
 and take care to raise a large standard, as was done on the Capitol at 
 Rome in similar circumstances (VIII. 1). Nor do they fail to ad-
 
 330 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 across customs familiar to them, and they felt them- 
 selves brought nearer to these characters whom they 
 saw in action round about them. Thus the poet was 
 enabled to reach that deep mass of readers who only 
 take an interest in what touches them, and do not easily 
 risk themselves in a land which they would find quite 
 new. Virgil's work, then, is not one of those air-built 
 constructions that float in a vacuum. In it the narra- 
 tion of the past rests upon the present, and imagination 
 leans upon reality. These fables, stepping every mo- 
 ment into history, give the reader an illusion of truth 
 and life. 
 
 To this advantage was joined another, not less 
 precious to Virgil. Like his friend Horace, and all the 
 other poets of that time, he had made himself the 
 collaborator of Augustus. He worked with ardour at 
 the strengthening of his dynasty and the durability of 
 his reforms, thinking this the best means of serving his 
 country. Augustus was at this moment carrying out a 
 difficult undertaking. He was endeavouring, as far as 
 possible, to reconcile the present with the past ; and it 
 was a point with him to retain as much of the govern- 
 ment which he had just destroyed as could suit with 
 the order of things he had founded. In order to save 
 the ancient institutions from the ruin with which they 
 were threatened, it was useful to show that they were 
 of ancient date. With a people conservative by nature 
 
 minister an oath to those who present themselves to take up arms, 
 while new soldiers, in order to give themselves courage, strike with 
 their swords upon their shields (VIII. 2, 5). This is a usage still 
 practised in tlie Roman army in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus.
 
 LAURENTUM. 331 
 
 like the Eomans, to have existed long was a reason to 
 exist for ever. By ageing them, Virgil rendered them 
 more venerable and sacred. This was especially his 
 aim in representing the young people of Laurentuni 
 practising in the management of chariots, in throwing 
 javelins, in running, in contending together round the 
 town. Custom imposed these occupations on the 
 Eoman youth, and the wise attached great importance 
 to them. It seemed to them that they could not be 
 neglected without risking a loss of vigour, bodily and 
 mental. Horace, who in his verses always puts himself 
 on the side of virtue and the ancient customs, harshly 
 reproaches Lydia with inspiring a young man with a 
 mad passion that makes him forget his duties. " Tell 
 me, in the name of the gods, Lydia, why thou burnest 
 so to cause his ruin ? How comes it that he shuns the 
 labours of the field of Mars, and can no more bear the 
 dust and sun ? Why leaves he his companions when 
 they tame a stubborn horse ? Why fears he now to 
 plunge in the Tiber's yellow waves, nor longer proudly 
 shows us his arms, all blackened with the bruises of the 
 the disk ? " ^ Evidently there were then many young 
 Eomans who, instead of going to the field of Mars, 
 passed the morning with Lydia. Horace wishes to 
 shame them out of their softness. Virgil attains the 
 same result by a roundabout way. He ages these 
 customs in order to give them more authority, and 
 render those who abandon them more criminal. How 
 dare to discard exercises respected by so many cen- 
 turies, and practised in the time of King Latinus ? 
 
 ^ Horace, Cariii., I. 8.
 
 332 THF, COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 Unfortunately it was not an easy task thus to bring 
 together the present and the past. Virgil had great 
 difficulties to contend with in placing the usages of his 
 time in the uEneid. What figure would the usages of a 
 recent epoch make transferred to such ancient ages ? 
 Did he not, in introducing them, expose himself to dis- 
 pleasing inconsistencies ; and could he hope to give to 
 such a patchwork production an appearance of unity ? 
 He succeeded in- doing so by a very simple process. 
 With a view to mingling ancient and modern, he 
 rejuvenates the one and ages the other, so that they 
 end by meeting half-way. He has thus managed to 
 create a sort of medium antiquity, where fable and fact, 
 legend and history, the ancient and the modern, may 
 live together side by side without our being shocked by 
 the mixture. 
 
 In order that the poet's skill may impress as it 
 deserves to do, and full justice be done him, his work 
 must be viewed very closely. At a certain distance, a 
 uniform tint envelops his narratives, all seems of a 
 piece and flows like a stream ; but on approaching one 
 becomes conscious of the touching-up, and we can count 
 the diverse details and incidents that concur to form 
 this beautiful whole. This is a critical work which 
 may sometimes appear trivial, but has the advantage of 
 making us better understand the divine art of Virgil. 
 Only to mention the town of Laurentum and the palace 
 of Latinus, with which we are at this moment 
 busied : of how many distinct elements is not this 
 learned picture formed ? How many different ages 
 meet in it! The palace is supported by columns, like 
 a Eonian edifice of the imperial epoch ; but at the same 
 time it is surrounded Ijy a thick wood, like a Druidic
 
 LAURENTUM. 333 
 
 dolmen.^ The vestibule is decorated with statues of 
 cedar- wood - — a grave anachronism, since we know from 
 Varro that Eome remained more than two centuries 
 without raising any in her temples. Is it credible 
 that such existed at Laurentum three hundred years 
 before the foundation of Eome ? Virgil, it is true, tries 
 to give his statues a Roman look and an air of antiquity. 
 It is Janus with his two faces, Picus in the costume of 
 an augur, the curved wand in his hand, as Eomulus 
 was represented. In these costumes one is less shocked 
 at seeing them in the house of Latinus. But here we 
 go back further still. In the middle of the atrium, a 
 few steps from these statues, is found what preceded 
 the statues themselves in the veneration of the nations 
 — one of those large trees which were honoured as the 
 image of the gods ere men had learned to give the 
 divinity a human form. It is a laurel, with its sacred 
 foliage respected by all, and which causes a sort of 
 superstitious fear to those who pass beneath its shadow." 
 Tlie religion of Latinus is somewhat like his palace, 
 being composed of practices borrowed from different 
 epochs and countries. When he desires to consult an 
 oracle on the subject of his daughter's marriage, he 
 retires to the vicinity of an Albanian spring, " whence 
 exhale pestiferous vapours,"^ immolates a hundred 
 sheep, and, lying on their fleeces, waits for the god to 
 make his will known in the course of the night. This 
 is a species of divination very celebrated among the 
 Greeks, and was still used in the time of Aristophanes. 
 
 1 yEii., VII. 170-3. 2 jiid^ i77_ 
 
 ^ Ibid., 59, * Ibid., 81.
 
 334 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 But Latinus also practises the most ancient rites of the 
 Roman religion. He has his daughter to serve him at 
 the altar when he sacrifices, as the vestal serves the 
 pontiff/ and a voice issuing from the depths of the 
 forests instructs him what he is to do, " the voice that 
 speaks " — aius locutius, as the old Romans called it. 
 The figure of the king at first sight appears a copy of 
 that of Nestor ; and, like him, he is fond of old stories 
 and likes to relate them.^ Yet Virgil had given him a 
 physiognomy of his own. Certain touches make us 
 feel that he is a Latin, and that he reigns over this 
 people, " virtuous by nature and needing not the laws 
 to force it to be just." ^ There is in his character some- 
 thing more honest, more gentle, and more pacific. He 
 is not a despot who decides alone and takes nobody's 
 advice : he has his council, which he assembles on 
 grave occasions.* However, so does Agamemnon, who 
 omits not to consult the Greek chiefs, whenever an 
 important decision is to be come to. In these assem- 
 blies there is a good deal of talking, and the Greek and 
 Latin heroes, like those of our own chansons de gcste, 
 are inexhaustible orators. As Homer says, " they have 
 been bred to be speakers of words and doers of deeds." 
 There are among them some who support authority and 
 others who oppose it. In tlie Iliad, the opposition is 
 represented by Thersites. Homer, who loves the kings, 
 sons of the gods, has drawn a very unflattering portrait 
 of this rebel : " Of all the warriors^, assembled under 
 the walls of Troy, there was none more frightful. He 
 
 ^.•7i;?i., VII. 72. -IbuL,9!,. 
 
 ^ Ibid., 203. * Ibid., XI. 2M.
 
 LAUKENTUM. 335 
 
 was bandy-legged, and with one foot he limped. His 
 high shoulders contracted his chest, and on his pointed 
 head floated a few scattered hairs." ^ Clearly, a man 
 thus moulded must have a grudge against the entire 
 human race for his ugliness. Drances, Virgil's 
 Thersites, has quite another look. He is a rich, 
 important man, a good speaker whom people like to 
 listen to, and who knows how to cloak his personal 
 resentments with the finest pretexts. As Thersites 
 detests Agamemnon, so he is the mortal enemy of 
 Turnus. His motives for disliking him are of those 
 that are not pardoned. He is old, and the other is 
 young ; he is accused of faint-heartedness in battle, and 
 naturally loves not those who have a reputation for 
 bravery ; he possesses fortune, but not consideration, for 
 although connected by his mother with the greatest 
 houses, his father's family is unknown. He belongs, 
 then, to the category of people whom we now call 
 d4class6s, from whom malcontents are usually recruited. 
 I cannot help finding that this portrait has a modern 
 appearance. A person like Drances can only be 
 imagined and made to speak well if we have lived 
 under a free rule, and have found out by experience 
 what importance jealous mediocrities can assume, and 
 the means they use in order to lower brilliant merit. 
 In creating this type, Virgil surely thought of the 
 obscure struggles and base discords in which the last 
 years of the Eepublic were worn away." 
 
 We see that many loans have here been made from 
 different epochs and societies ; but they are guessed at 
 
 1 Homer, Iliad, II. 217. ^ ^En., XI. 336.
 
 o3(i THE COUNTUY OF IIOliACl,; AND VIRGIL. 
 
 rather than clearly disceniahle. In order to bring 
 out the various tints of which this picture is formed, I 
 have been obliged to exaggerate tlieni. In reality, they 
 blend into a uniform colouring. The marvel is that 
 they could have been so well united that the joining is 
 scarcely distinguishable. Virgil has succeeded in this 
 nearly throughout, and if we except a few passages 
 where the mixing is less skilful and the joins more 
 apparent, it may be said that, taking the poem 
 altogether, the component parts are so ingeniously put 
 together that they end by malcing an harmonious whole. 
 The elements composing the work are taken a little 
 from everywhere, but the poet only owes to himself the 
 connecting-band which holds them together, and the 
 medium in which he has placed them. This is his true 
 originality. In order to frame his stories and group his 
 personages, he has created a conventional antiquity, at 
 once broad and elastic, a sort of twilight age in which 
 men and things of all times may meet without surprise, 
 and has succeeded in giving to his creation an astonish- 
 ing appearance of truth and life. This is what other 
 writers of his time did not always manage to do. Many 
 of those about him who professed to love antiquity 
 scarcely understood it, and he almost alone of his age 
 possessed understanding and taste for it. Varro the 
 elder, so enamoured of the past ; Titus Livius, whose 
 mind, as he says, felt so much pleasure in making itself 
 antique — when they tried to write the history of those 
 primitive times, could not make them live again. On 
 the other hand, pictures which Virgil has traced of 
 them, althougli often fancy ones, have taken forcible 
 possession of all memories ; and whatever discoveries
 
 LAUEENTUM. 337 
 
 Archaeology may have in store for us, I think it may be 
 positively asserted that the imagination of the learned 
 will always picture Laurentum and the palace of 
 Latinus as he has drawn them for us. 
 
 COMBAT OF ^NEAS AND TURNUS — ARTIFICES USED BY 
 • VIRGIL TO DEFER IT — THE BATTLE-FIELD — ^DIFFER- 
 ENCE BETWEEN THE FIGHT OF ^NEAS WITH TURNUS 
 AND THAT OF ACHILLES AND HECTOR. 
 
 But if we would assist at the last scene of the JEneid, 
 we must leave Laurentum and this palace, where it 
 will perhaps be found that we have tarried too long. 
 The concluding drama of the poem takes place outside 
 the town, in the plain extending from the mountains 
 to the sea. 
 
 The fight between JEneas and Turnus is announced 
 in advance and prepared with care, j^neas first 
 suggests to the Latin envoys, who come to ask a truce 
 of him, this easy means of quite terminating the 
 difference.^ Drances, one of them, hastens to report 
 to Turnus his enemy's challenge, and the latter has 
 too much courage 'not to accept it at once. But the 
 gods who watch over his days take care to retard as 
 much as in them lies a struggle in which he must 
 succumb, and protect him more than he would have 
 them to do. Iti the first combat, which takes place 
 about the Trojan camp, as Turnus seeks ^neas with 
 
 ^jEn ,XL 115. 
 Y
 
 338 THE COUNTKV OF HOKACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 fury, and the latter does not fly him, one might think 
 the meetino- inevitable. Yet Juno finds a means to 
 separate them. " She forms of a light vapour a shadow 
 without consistence, resembling ^neas ; she clothes 
 it in Trojan arms, lends it vain words, sounds without 
 ideas, and gives it the bearing of the hero. Such, they 
 say, are the phantoms that flit about after death, such 
 the dreams which sport with our drowsy senses." ^ 
 Turnus, deceived by the resemblance, pursues the false 
 ^neas to a ship, in which he takes refuge. As soon 
 as he is in it, the goddess breaks the cable which 
 attached the vessel to the shore, and the poor champion, 
 in spite of his prayers, is carried by the waves far from 
 the field of battle where his companions seek, and his 
 enemy awaits him. Another time, circumstances seem 
 more grave and more pressing yet. All is ready for the 
 single combat, and the final conditions are about to 
 be arranged. An altar rises in the midst of the plain, 
 on which ^Eneas and King Latinus agree, by solemn 
 vows, to respect what has been agreed on, and the two 
 armies are assembled to assist at the decisive struggle 
 of their chiefs. At this moment, Juturna, sister of 
 Turnus, who has been beloved by Jupiter and in 
 exchange received immortality, excites the Eutules 
 not to let their king expose himself for them. Pity 
 seizes them when they see this young man measure 
 himself against an adversary who appears to them more 
 redoubtable, and it occurs to them to avoid by all 
 means a struggle whose issue they foresee. An arrow, 
 suddenly let fly from their ranks, strikes one of the 
 
 i^?i., X. 636.
 
 LAURENTUM, 339 
 
 Trojan chiefs, and the meUe begins afresh.^ This unfore- 
 seen and improvised combat is certainly one of the most 
 original in all the ^neid. Both sides are carried away 
 by fury, and use as weapons anything that comes to hand. 
 They fight around the altar which they have just 
 sworn to respect, and one of the combatants even 
 seizes a flaming brand used in the sacrifice, and hurls 
 it in the face of an advancing foe. " His long beard 
 catches fire," says the poet, " and the odour it exhales 
 in burning is smelt from far." ^ These various incidents 
 not only serve to delay the end of the poem, and allow 
 it to attain a proper length ; they are very skilfully 
 handled so as to increase our impatience. When this 
 combat, so often expected and so many times deferred, 
 at last takes place, all minds will be excited by ex- 
 pectation, and will follow its varying fortunes with a 
 more passionate interest. 
 
 Virgil gives this great struggle a setting worthy of it. 
 Let us imagine in this now deserted plain, on one side 
 Laurentum with its high walls, and on the other the 
 Trojan camp, with its gates and its retrenchments. On 
 the ramparts of the town and on the tops of the towers 
 press women, country people, and children, looking on. 
 The two armies surround the field of battle, each 
 keeping its ranks, as if from one moment to another 
 they might be forced to resume the interrupted struggle. 
 Meanwhile the spears, for the moment useless, are 
 stuck into the ground, and the shields rest against 
 them. The chiefs flit about in the midst of the 
 soldiers, resplendent with gold and purple. All eyes 
 
 ^^Eii., XII. 216, et seq. ^Ibid., 300.
 
 340 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 are stretched towards that empty space, where the 
 fate of the two peoples is about to be staked. 
 Heaven is not less intent tlian earth on this great 
 spectacle. Juno, in order to be nearer to it, has 
 alighted on the heights of Mount Albanus, whence 
 the town of Latinus and the two armies may plainly 
 be seen, while Jupiter, in his heavenly abode, holds in 
 his hands the scales in which he weighs the destinies 
 of mortals. 
 
 The account of this combat is one of the most 
 dramatic and engrossing descriptions in the jEncid. In 
 reading it, one well sees that the poet was not exhausted 
 by his long journey. , He arrives at the end of his 
 work with his mind as vigorous and his talent as 
 fresh and youthful as when he began it. Death took 
 him by surprise at the age of fifty-one, in the full 
 possession of his genius. Had he continued to live, 
 not only would he have given the finishing touches to 
 the ^ncid, and left it more perfect, but we should 
 doubtless also have possessed that philosophic poem 
 of which it is said he thought in the leisure moments 
 left him by the composition of his epic, and which 
 was to have been the ripened and serene work of liis 
 last years, 
 
 I think it needless to resume and analyse this beauti- 
 ful narrative here. All readers of Virgil have it before 
 their eyes. Let it, then, suffice me to point out in a few 
 words what seems to me its distinguishing character- 
 istic. The last combat of Achilles and Hector in the 
 Iliad has certainly a very great importance, and one 
 feels very well that it is to decide the fate of Troy ; but 
 after all, the fall of the town is not its immediate
 
 LAURENTUM. 341 
 
 consequence, and it survives the death of its staunchest 
 defender for some time. Nor can it be said that the 
 combat is premeditated : the two opponents do not seek 
 each other, and they encounter merely by chance. After 
 a defeat of his side, Hector would not flee like them, but 
 stopped before the gate to await the enemy. In reality, 
 he is so little resolved to fight with Achilles, that he 
 takes to flight on perceiving him. In Virgil, on the 
 contrary, everything is perfectly arranged and decided 
 beforehand. Turnus has taken leave of Amata and 
 Lavinia, and ^neas has bidden adieu to his son, 
 while judges have chosen and prepared the spot where 
 they are to encounter. It is a large plain, smooth and 
 bare, and in order to leave no advantage of which the 
 one might profit to the detriment of the other, any 
 few trees that grew there have been levelled. A 
 solemn sacrifice precedes the signal of the struggle. 
 While the priests immolate a young swine and a white 
 sheep, the chiefs of the two armies turn toward the ris- 
 ing sun, whose first rays colour the mountain tops, and, 
 holding in their hands cakes of salted flour, invoke all the 
 gods, and engage to respect the issue of the combat as a 
 decree of Destiny. According as ^neas or Turnus 
 shall win the victory, the Trojans or the Latins will be 
 definitively masters, and the fate of the two peoples is 
 bound up in the fortune of their champions. A sort of 
 judgment of God is therefore in preparation, and it is 
 impossible to follow Virgil in all the details of this 
 fight in the lists without thinking of similar narratives 
 found in old chansons de geste. There, too, knights 
 engage in combat in the presence of an assembled people, 
 and before fighting we see them worshipping relics,
 
 342 THE COUNTRY CF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 taking solemn oaths, and giving gages of battle. What 
 completes the illusion is that here, as in many tourna- 
 ments of chivalry, a woman is the pretext and prize of 
 the struggle. " In this arena," Turnus proudly says, 
 " we must win the hand of Lavinia." ^ 
 
 " Illo quceratur conjux Lavinia campo." 
 
 However great the emotion we feel in reading the 
 combat between Achilles and Hector in the Iliad, it 
 contains certain incidents at which we cannot help 
 feeling somewhat surprised. For example, the sight of 
 Hector flying when he sees Achilles, " like a trembling 
 pigeon before the hawk," and his only deciding to fight 
 when he has no other means of escape, grates upon us. 
 Of course we are wrong, and nothing is more natural 
 and more true than these sudden timidities and momen- 
 tary hesitations in the face of a great peril ; but in spite 
 of all, in the present day they seem to us out of place in a 
 hero. "We are therefore grateful to Virgil for having 
 spared us them. Of course Turnus flees, like Hector, 
 but only when the weapon he is using is broken in 
 his hand, and he remains without defence. " Then he 
 runs hither and thither, and makes a thousand uncer- 
 tain turns " ; ^ he approaches his soldiers, whom terror 
 renders motionless ; he calls them by their names, and 
 urgently begs them to give him his sword, and the 
 moment he receives it, bravely recommences the 
 struggle. What also shocks us in the narrative of 
 Homer is the part the gods take in the fight. In 
 reality, the victory is theirs. Minerva never wavers in 
 
 ' .Ln., XII. 80. '^ Ibid., 7 iS.
 
 LAURENTUM. 343 
 
 her aid to Achilles, who is the stronger, and brings him 
 back his javelin, which he has flung unsuccessfully, and 
 she basely deceives Hector, who is the weaker, by 
 making him think that his brother Deiphobus is going 
 to fight at his side. It is only when the struggle has 
 begun, and Hector wants his brother's help, that he 
 perceives he is alone, and that the pretended Deiphobus 
 has disappeared. In Virgil, the gods neutralise each other 
 by dividing. If Juturna gives Turnus back his sword, 
 Venus allows ^neas to draw out his javelin, which 
 has stuck in the trunk of a wild olive. Thus the inter- 
 vention of divinity does not annul the merit of the men ; 
 the victory is their personal work, and the final success 
 is decided by their own valour. It is also curious to 
 note that between the date of the two poems the senti- 
 ment of honour has become refined, and that Virgil 
 already knows and respects certain delicacies, or, if you 
 will, certain prejudices still prevailing among us at the 
 present time. 
 
 His personages, when compared with those of Homer, 
 give rise to the same observations. Although ^neas 
 plays nearly the same part as Achilles, and the poet at 
 moments has chosen to lend him his character, he never- 
 theless differs from him very widely. In his combat 
 with Turnus, he pushes respect for plighted faith to 
 excess. When the Latins, violently breaking the truce, 
 begin the struggle again, he does not at first think that 
 their perjury authorises him to break his vow. Un- 
 armed and bareheaded, he would stay his people, who 
 are trying to defend themselves ; and while preventing 
 them from returning the enemy's blows, is himself 
 wounded. More remarkable yet, the poet has managed
 
 344 THE COUNTiiY OF HORACE AND VIKGIL. 
 
 to make him keep his humanity and gentleness, even in 
 the bloody scene at the end. There, especially, we 
 remark the difference between his character and that of 
 Achilles. In reading the Iliad our hearts fails us at 
 the last violences of the Greek hero. Not only does he 
 slay Hector without ruth, but he replies to his touching 
 supplications merely by regretting that " he cannot eat 
 his quivering flesh." Pious ^neas, on the contrary, 
 allows himself to be softened by the prayers of Turnus. 
 He is even about to forgive him, when he perceives the 
 baldrick of his young friend Pallas, whom Turnus did 
 not spare, in spite of his youth, and whose spoils he has 
 appropriated. We understand that his anger should be 
 stirred up again at this sight, and we forgive him for 
 giving way to a just resentment. It is not .lEneas, 
 but Pallas, who avenges, and strikes Turnus by the 
 hand of a friend. 
 
 " Pallaf! te, hoc vulnere, Pallas 
 Immolat." ^ 
 
 Turnus resembles Homer's heroes more nearly, and is 
 made upon their model. Yet he has certain features of 
 his own, and which are stamped with the epoch of Virgil. 
 Above all, he seems sensitive to what we call the point 
 of honour. When, deceived by his sister, who would 
 save him at all costs, he has followed the false yEneas, 
 and the ship into which he lias imprudently thrown 
 himself carries him far from the battle, his grief is 
 intense, and nothing is more touching than his laments. 
 " Mighty Jupiter ! " he exclaims, " have you then found 
 
 '^n., XII. 918.
 
 LAURENTUM. 345 
 
 me worthy of such infamy ? What will all those brave 
 men say of me, who have followed me, and whom I 
 have delivered up to death without accompanying them ? 
 What is to be done ? What abyss deep enough will 
 open itself under my feet ? You, at" least, winds, 
 have pity on me. Carry this bark against the cliffs. 
 Turnus himself conjures you. Break it on these rocks, 
 where the reproaches of my friends and the cry of my 
 remorse may reach me never more ! " ^ Do we not seem 
 to hear certain heroes of our dtansons ch geste .? It is 
 the same generous ring, the same chivalric ardour, the 
 same scrupulous care for honour. Turnus is concerned, 
 above all things, for his reputation ; does not wish any 
 one to be able to accuse him of disloyalty, and would 
 willingly have taken his device from the words of 
 Eoland : 
 
 " Que mauveise chan<;un de nus chantet ne sett ! " 
 
 If I have made a point of dwelling on the resemblances 
 observable between the ^neid and the poems of the 
 Middle Ages, it is because they seem to me to have 
 some importance. It is useful to show how Virgil, who 
 loves to connect himself with the past, sometimes 
 stretches out a hand to the future. When we know what 
 is ancient and what modern in him, we better under- 
 stand the part he has played in the history of letters. 
 Placed at the meeting-point of two ages, and by a happy 
 chance partaking of both, he has served as an inter- 
 mediary between them. It is through him that we 
 reach Anticpiity ; it is he who opens it up to us, he who 
 
 ^ ^^n., X. 668.
 
 346 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. 
 
 leads and guides us to it. Between it and us he forms 
 a kind of connecting-link, and in this sense Baillet was 
 right in saying that " he is the centre point of all the 
 poets who came before and after him." 
 
 Such are the reflections that forced themselves upon 
 me while trying to picture to myself the combat of 
 ^neas and Turnus in the plain of Laurentum. I fear 
 they have carried me very far. My readers will doubt- 
 less find that I have kept them too long on that desert 
 shore, searching for lost towns of which no trace remains. 
 But travelling with Virgil, one delights to linger by the 
 way, and he is a companion from whom 'tis hard to 
 part. 
 
 THE END.